Conduit
by Sheryl Holmes
Summary: Darcy Lewis, intern extraordinaire, gets juiced up by a lab accident. Now Fury wants her on the team, but Darcy isn't sold. "Interns are supposed to get the coffee, not de-Hyde Dr. Jekyll!" "I wasn't offering, Lewis; that was an order." Darcy/Bruce Banner (Hulk)
1. Curriculum Vitae

_Authoress's Note: This story is written in the 3rd person. I only wrote the Intro in 2nd/1st person because it seemed to fit. I wanted this moment to be from Darcy's direct perspective, but from Chapter II onward, it's all 3rd person, baby._

 _Also, be advised, ya'll: if you came for Darcy/Bruce, this shit is SLOOOOWburn. I like there to be a good lead-in. Alright. Advisories all done. Enjoy._

* * *

Imagine being the most brilliant person in all of your classes. Seriously. You're so freaking smart that you graduate high school early, then get your AA early despite having triple majored because everything and its brother interests you. Imagine that people always underestimated you because you're perky and snarky and sort of look maybe a little like a slacker because you like to wear knit things and you cuss more often than actually putting your extensive used-to-read-the-dictionary-for-fun-when-I-was-bored-as-a-kid vocabulary to use.

Imagine for a moment that you have a mind that can get so damn bored so damn easy that you once learned to play the piano one week, dropped it, picked up the cello, dropped it, picked up the oboe, dropped it, and could still play all three well enough to half-ass your way into a music scholarship. Imagine that you're so desperate for mental stimulation that you invented a drinking game called strip-Sudoku and wrote a rulebook for it so you could teach it to the stoner friends who copied your grades. Imagine that this same antsy cerebral impulsiveness led you to decide, on an absolute whim with no forethought whatsoever, to sign up for a fucking astrophysics internship.

Because, here's the deal: That girl? Yeah, that's me. And when I signed up to be Jane Foster's assistant/intern/whatever—after passing a flyer in my university hallway and thinking "astrophysics sounds fun"—I most certainly was not signing up to be involved in an interplanetary government conspiracy that included alien robots, Norse gods, and the ubiquitous men in black.

I was signing up to learn how to use fancy telescopes and talk jargon and…okay, maybe I had no idea what astrophysics actually involved, but I was doing a damn good job as an intern up until the freaking GOD OF THUNDER fell from the sky.

Then my life turned into this. Sitting in a small white room with Jane digging a trench into the floor with her pacing while I tried to remember the finger patterns to Bach's Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C minor. The dull echo of a sterile government "debriefing" (interrogation) room. The tiny camera up in the top right corner of the box we occupied, blinking as it zooms in on my face.

This. This is my fucking life.

I sighed. Jane was worrying her lip with her teeth as she glanced at me, but I flashed her a Darcy-smile. The kind with teeth and dimples that said "Buck up, pal! This is a walk in the park! Nobody is going to get their brains washed today!" Jane visibly relaxed and continued her incessant pacing. And I went back to playing the oboe in my head and twitching my fingers to keep from imagining what they might accomplish by murdering us, memory wiping us, or employing an experimental form of vivisection. Jane made another round and I grinned again, this time offering a double thumbs-up.

The door slammed open. We both jumped and I nearly fell off the uncomfortable white chair my derriere was occupying. Two suits walked in, followed quickly by a man who honest-to-Norse-gods was wearing a leather duster, a turtleneck, and an eyepatch.

"Where's the fluffy white cat? You can't reveal your evil plan without him." Damn word vomit.

He was nonplussed. In fact, hitting the same button I'd become sensitive to through the years, he just straight up ignored my presence. His eyes—eye, sorry—didn't waver from Jane as he asked, voice hard and condescending as if those were permanent characteristics of his personality:

"I take it you want to know if Thor is alive?"

Jane nodded vehemently.

"He's fine."

Jane's shoulders fell, her body going lax after so many hours of worrying for his life. She'd seen his very public display of heroism smeared across every news channel for all of one minute before she'd lost her cool and called the number Agent Coulson had provided her. They'd picked us up, shipped us to a "secure location" and firmly told us to wait. Wait, they told us, as New York City was crumbling.

And apparently what we'd waited for was all of thirteen words from a Bond villain. He turned on his heel and was walking out.

This was so not going to fly.

"Um, excuse me, but what happens now?"

Finally, he deigned to glance over his leather-clad shoulder. He raised an eyebrow over his unseeing eye.

"Who the hell are you?"

I laughed lightly, but it sounded confrontational in a sarcastic sort of way. "I'm the intern."

"Dr. Foster, do you need an intern?"

The fuck did that mean?!

Jane looked startled and rushed to insist, that yes, she definitely needed her intern.

Dr. No seemed to chew on that a moment, then he replied, "Too bad," and stalked out the door.

As the door shut behind the suits, I asked aloud to no one, "Too bad as in 'too bad, so sad, we're gonna' kill her anyway'? Or too bad as in 'too bad you'll have to work with her, that one annoys me'?" I couldn't help that my voice sounded disinterested. I drawled the words but my eyes were wide and I was legit concerned. Thankfully, it seemed Jane recognized I was actually fearing for my life. She opened her mouth, it seemed, to comfort me, but nothing came out. Jane shook her head dumbly, still staring at the closed door. She tried again:

"I…don't know."

Then the door opened again and we repeated the startled act. This time, Agent Coulson strolled in, looking amiable and smug as ever.

"Dr. Foster, Ms. Lewis!" he offered jovially, as if we hadn't just been trapped in a box for ten hours with supervised pee breaks then scared shitless by a taciturn PETA target. He took off his sunglasses with one hand and pocketed them smoothly. "Congratulations!" Jane and I shared a look—hers perplexed and mine full of dread. Coulson grinned at us, spreading his hands out in a gesture of warm welcome. "You're hired!"


	2. The Chamber

**_The Chamber_**

 **Day 1:**

She couldn't help it. The place was gorgeous.

Imagine the most beautiful house you've ever entered—vaulted ceiling, professionally-picked modern décor, glass walls and a view to boot…the whole nine yards.

Yeah. This was better.

Darcy turned in circles over and over again as she took in the lobby of the Stark Tower. It wasn't that it was warm and welcoming. On the contrary, it was sterile. The place was all hard surfaces and bland colors and had all the charm of a hospital room. But it still felt… _homey_ somehow. Like the way Jane's brain felt homey to Darcy: it was calculating, but still emotional at its core. This place had heart in it, somewhere. And, much like Jane's brain, it was also _huge_.

She nearly tripped over her feet taking it all in. She couldn't believe she got to room with Jane in this legendary building. A double-apartment. Jane had insisted on Darcy living nearby and that was the best she could argue for in her favor—though, really, it was because Darcy was the thread to sanity that Jane recognized she desperately needed. But it was appreciated all the same.

As Darcy made herself dizzy with distracted pirouettes, she heard Jane arguing with a second voice over how she'd like her equipment transferred. She was also asking when she could see Thor. Darcy glanced back to see who was lazily responding to her with a degree of condescension she'd learned to attribute to privileged males. She nearly fell backwards onto her ass.

Tony Stark. Jane, her boss/best friend, was arguing over her handmade equipment with _Tony_ Friggin' _Stark_. She figured she'd run into the guy eventually (after all, it was _his_ Tower, even if S.H.I.E.L.D. was the one paying the rent.) But she didn't think it'd be so soon.

Darcy turned back to glance at the forty-foot-high ceiling.

 _I guess this is my life now,_ she shrugged, grinning. _Better than the New Mexican desert, definitely._

 **Day 2:**

 **Notes from Darcy Lewis's personal journal, page 481:**

Okay, so this place has a virtual butler named Jarvis. Not sure if that's creepy or cool. I feel like I'm being watched when I take a shower and I guess I am…? I mean, he's not WATCHING ME so much as he's watching EVERYONE, but that's not exactly comforting, you know what I mean? I feel like shit could get _2000: A Space Odyssey_ real fucking quick around here. But the guy actually seems pretty cool. Like, I'd legit get a beer with him.

That is, if he had a corporeal form. Which he doesn't. Anyway, I told him I'd like to chill with him sometime and he sounded amused.

Dude, can A.I.s BE amused?

Holy shit, what if we gave a machine sentience and instead of taking over the world it just decided to go into stand up comedy?

That seems way more likely. Let's be real. Having free will is already a joke. I mean, look where it got me. I have made literally zero impactful decisions about my life since I had that one bright idea in the hall of my university two years ago. Now I live where Jane wants me to live, work where the government wants me to work, and I can't even buy my own shampoo anymore because this place is stocked according to Pepper Potts's specifications.

Free will my ass.

 **Day 8:**

"What can I say? The guy's a gambler."

Stark and an appalled lab tech had been arguing over the Mega-Mysterious Magic Machine Chamber (or M-squared-C, as Darcy was calling it in her head) for nigh on forty minutes now. The ten-foot-tall metal chamber (she wasn't sure what its official title was) stood against the back wall of the massive laboratory Jane was set to share with Stark and a few others. Stark kept saying everything would be fine and the lab tech kept saying something about instability and collateral damage.

Now that Jane had reunited with her guy (an event which began with her quietly questioning Thor for not coming to see her sooner while she was slaving away to build a bridge to get to him and ended in a long hug that felt awkward to the bystanders Stark and Darcy) she'd re-entered her work in earnest. And Darcy was being her extra pair of hands—though, more than anything, she was just taking in all the gadgets and gizmos. And of all the sciencey stuff in the entire building, it was the mystery box that intrigued her the most. It called to her, in all its secretive glory—a metal vault that scared off lab techs, with the tiny (probably reinforced) glass window on its door she'd yet been allowed to peer into. She'd been lusting after the vault for six days now, ever since she'd first stepped foot into the lab. And this was the first time she'd heard anyone actually talk about it.

Stark was apparently overseeing changes to the application of some other doc's designs for the thing and something in the special physics language that Darcy didn't speak was making the poor lab tech lose his nuts and bolts.

Darcy only caught bits and pieces as she was heading in and out of the lab with the tools and equipment Jane requested (it'd all been packed in the expectedly absurd Dr. Foster technique—i.e. the "What Method?" method.) But she slowed her footsteps every time she came and left the room as Jane absentmindedly asked what was taking so long. Darcy nearly growled, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that Stark had an attentive audience. Thankfully, the argument continued blissfully unaware of Darcy's gaze as she gave the bickering pair sideways glances, handing off different tools to an oil-smudged and sweaty Jane on the floor. The conversation seemed to get more and more ridiculous with the animated faces the twenty-something tech was making.

"B-but sir, if what these directions are indicating mean what I think they mean—" Darcy started to call him Shaggy in her head. He had an ill-advised goatee, accented by a wrinkled dress shirt and too-long limbs.

"That's usually what the word 'indicating' indicates, kid," Stark drawled, clearly relishing the guy's panic.

Stark stood atop the raised half of the lab, up a few stairs, wearing a three-piece suit. The transparent glass and white-walled design of the facility made him look like a sort of mythical leader in a pale and ghostly dimension. Just below him, yards away, Jane lay in a mess of jury-rigged machinery—wrenches, tape, various cords running every which-way, and a bottle leaking some kind of apoxy strewn around her body as she attempted to rewire one of her thingamajigs ("Particle redistributor," Jane corrected, exasperated.) It was the difference between science Heaven and science Hell. And Darcy was down in the realm of oil, tin, and muck.

"Darcy, the—the circular one. With the hook," came Jane's voice, muffled as it echoed out of the belly of one of her metal-and-wire children. Her hand pantomimed vaguely, grease-smeared fingers snapping as if the action contributed to her description of the needed tool.

From this angle, Jane looked like a lowly mechanic in a pristine surgical room. The dichotomy was as amusing as it was endearing. Usually, Darcy could appreciate the elbows-deep feel of Jane's brand of science, but not while she was eavesdropping. Grumbling, Darcy let her blue eyes scan the various items on the floor before her; none of them seemed to match that description. Finally, she picked up something resembling a sodergun with a curved nose, still watching the discussion taking place On High. She cursed as she stubbed her toe on an iron something-or-another, not watching where she was walking as she not-so-surreptitiously took stock of the interaction.

"He knows what's he's doing."

"Sir, with all due respect, I don't feel comfortable working on something with such dangerous implications—"

"You're the menial labor. You follow the instructions and I'll do the hard stuff. No danger for you."

"That's—that's not my point."

"Uh-huh, and do I care what your point is?" By now, Stark was perusing his smart phone, his tone firmly disinterested. His stocky build went well with the lackadaisical attitude, _contraposto_ stance, and frustratingly dismissive tilt of the head. But Darcy could tell by the tightness in his shoulders that having his authority questioned was getting under his skin in a very real way.

The tech took a deep breath, carefully scratching his goatee. "It's not just dangerous to work on, Mr. Stark, it's dangerous to _use_."

"Which is why," Stark raised his eyes from his phone, voice finally rising, "we're making the damn chamber. If you think you're smarter than either myself or my colleague, kid, you've got a bigger ego than I do—" He paused, pretending to think, then rectified his statement. "I take that back. No one is as egotistical as I am, but you're giving me a run for my money. I'll make it easy for you. Work on the project or get the fuck out."

The tech stood there, shocked. Then, abruptly, he turned and walked down the stairs. Tony Stark stared as the glass door swung shut passively behind him.

"Well…that wasn't the reaction I was expecting." He continued to stand still a moment. Then, recovering quickly, he turned directly to Darcy.

"You're Foster's tech?"

Darcy's brain glitched as she realized she was no longer an unseen observer in this situation. _Well, damn. I guess I'm not as invisible as I thought._

"Uhhh…"

Stark didn't wait for her to find her tongue. "Dr. Foster, we have a friendly work environment." His voice was deceptively saccharine. "Do you believe in sharing?"

Jane was in science la-la land as she responded with a _very_ aware and comprehending (sarcasm strongly implied): "Uh-huh." A tool clattered as it fell to the floor in front of her feet, punctuating her response.

"Great!" He slapped his hands together and rubbed them with vigor. "You're," he directed this comment to Darcy, "due back here tomorrow at 6 to go over these blueprints with me." He began his descent from the higher ground.

Darcy imagined reaching into her brain to reattach her vocal chords accordingly. "Wha—no, hold up. I'm her assistant, yeah, but, hey man, I've never even taken a calculus class."

Stark paused on the steps. Then, to her surprise, a grin spread across his face. "All the better." As he swaggered out the door, she overheard him mutter, "…none of that 'I know better than the geniuses' bullshit."

She knew she was in trouble but she couldn't even find it in her to be angry at Jane.

 _Holy shit, I get to work on the **chamber!**_

Jane was too distracted to see Darcy doing her happy dance over the sea of cords.

 **Sometime Between Days 8 and 9:**

A thud jolted Darcy from sleep. She stared up at her ceiling. Somewhere up there, in the floors above her bedroom, something was happening. She blearily squinted at the red digits on her alarm clock. **03:31** blinked back at her. She yawned and sat up on her elbows. Another dull thud came. It sounded both loud and quiet—like something large was being contained. _Maybe Stark is working on his suit_ , she yawned again, staring up at her ceiling in the dark. Blue moonlight from her window, high on the sixty-seventh floor, outlined the high points of the bedroom furniture. But for the most part, she was in a blinding darkness. Suddenly, chills went up her arms. Something was _wrong_ , she could feel it, and the thought made her feel like a sitting duck.

A third, then fourth thud sounded, louder this time. Closer.

Darcy considered crawling out of bed. Maybe it'd woken Jane, too. Thor had already headed back to Asgard temporarily to deal with his brother, so it wouldn't be as if she were interrupting anything. Darcy stared down her glasses on the nightstand as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. She felt like a five-year-old again, afraid to leave the sanctuary of her bed.

"Miss Lewis?" a voice asked in the darkness. Darcy caught a scream as it tried to work its way up her throat. She put her hand to her chest and breathed through the panic, calming her racing heartbeat.

"Jarvis, what the hell, man!"

"I'm sorry to have startled you," he drawled. He didn't sound sorry at all. "Are you well? Your sleeping pattern seems to have been disrupted."

"Yeah, by the crazy noise up top." Jarvis was silent to that and she thought maybe she'd even confused an A.I.

"Yes, it appears some activity is taking place upstairs. It should subside in several minutes, Miss Lewis. Might I be of any more assistance?"

Darcy glared suspiciously at the upper right corner of the room, where she presumed one of the cameras must be hidden. _Did the fucking A.I. just lie to me? "Activity"_ _my ass..._

"No, dude, I think we're all groovy for tonight," she replied with false perk.

Jarvis seemed to hesitate. Then: "Goodnight, Miss Lewis."

Jarvis was right; the sounds _did_ stop. But she didn't have a good night.

Darcy Lewis studied the ceiling until the sun came up.


	3. The Gambler

**_The Gambler_**

 **Day 9**

Well, they were blue.

The blueprints, that is. At least in that way they were normal.

In the way of being actual _prints_ they were not like other blueprints; they were holographic. Other ways in which they were entirely unlike normal blueprints included the fact that they were not even slightly helpful or germane to process of building the thing they supposedly were blueprints _to._

Or, at least Darcy _thought_ normal blueprints were helpful. It wasn't as if she'd ever seen blueprints before in her life, let alone holographic ones that went to a giant Tin Box of Mystery.

Darcy swallowed. The resulting noise sounded like it came straight out of a cartoon. _Gulp._

6 in the morning and she hadn't had a wink of sleep since the weird shit upstairs woke her up. And now she had been given proxy directions by Jarvis (presumably because Stark was still sleeping at this ungodly hour) to "go over" and "become familiar with" the chamber's designs.

When Jarvis pulled them up in the center of the upper level of the lab, Darcy had been ecstatic; she got to be where Stark worked and, given the state of Jane's part of the lab, it felt like a step up in the world (no pun intended.) When she got a closer look at the designs, however, she found herself face-to-face with equations and schematics and some scrawled-then-scanned-into-the-hologram sketches that she couldn't decipher even if she _could_ read this mad scientist's muddled handwriting. Fuck. Was this _Stark's_ penmanship? How the hell did he get anything accomplished?

"Okay, dude. C'mon. This is friggin' chicken scratch. How the hell am I supposed to read this?"

"I don't believe that was the point, Miss Lewis," Jarvis's voice responded hesitantly. Darcy snorted.

"I get that Stark doesn't want anyone questioning his authority, but it'd be easier to _follow_ his directions if I knew what they were." Darcy leaned closer to the hologram, her forehead dipping into some floating numbers while her eyes tried to take in the symbols. Was that a 4 or a _g?_ "How did Shaggy even get to the point where he could commit mutiny? I can't read any of this, let alone get spooked by it," she muttered.

"…Shaggy, Miss Lewis?"

"Yeah. The guy that looked like he came out of the Scooby Doo cartoon. Had an unconvincing goatee."

"With all due respect, Miss Lewis, aren't _all_ goatees unconvincing?"

 _I fucking knew he should go into stand up,_ Darcy chuckled to herself. "Jarvis, you can call me Darcy."

"If that is your preference, Darcy." He said it the same way he said "Miss Lewis"—like it was a title, not a name. _Wait—he? It? "It" just feels disrespectful, but does Jarvis identify as male? Whoa. What if Stark gave him a masculine voice but he thinks of himself as female. Shit. That would open up a whole 'nother level of questions about transgender rights._

Darcy snapped herself out of her philosophical reverie. She needed to get this stuff down. It didn't matter that Stark's entire purpose in this was to make her feel helpless enough not to question him; she had no intention of being intimidated out of doing the job right. Through the hologram, she saw a notebook sprawled out on Jane's desk. Grabbing it, she marched back upstairs, gel pen handy and face determined.

Darcy Lewis didn't do helpless.

 _Two Hours Later_

Did she have any idea what any of it meant? Fuck no. Could she read it now? Hell yes.

Darcy's aunt was a nurse and out of all the medical advice she had given Darcy, only one thing she said had stuck. She could still hear Aunt Flor's nasally Boston accent: _"If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to read a doctor's handwriting—and honey, trust me, docs write like two-year-olds—read the script **sideways**!"_

"Works like a charm," Darcy said in a mimicked Bostonian drawl as she finished off her handwritten (and far more legible) copy of the blueprints presented to her by the holograms. She'd nearly gotten a crick in her neck the first half hour from turning her head until Jarvis politely informed her that she could zoom in and out and rotate the pages. Now, she had no neck pain and a notebook full of science. _Internal high five!_ she congratulated herself.

At that moment, the automatic glass door to the lab slid open, revealing a swanky Tony Stark.

He sauntered in, smug as ever in his signature three-piece suit. His tie, unsurprisingly, was Iron Man red. "So. Did you become adequately acquainted with the blueprints?" Darcy decided if she didn't love challenges so much she'd probably want to kill him right now.

"Yeah, I rewrote it all so we could read it."

The shock was plain on his face. "You—you _what?_ " He jogged up the steps and tore the notebook from her hands, despite her protest. Staring at the pages, he flipped through them with violent urgency. After several pages, he stopped abruptly and began blinking. Slowly, he glanced back up at her, eyes narrowing. Something shifted behind his eyes as he took her in. Despite herself, Darcy was pleased. _Respect_. She'd gained some fractional bit of _respect_.

"Alright, fine," he said grudgingly, his tone losing all its smug and sarcastic perkiness. "You win this round." He handed her back the notebook as she gave him her best shit-eating, in-your-face grin. "Now, do you know what any of it means?"

Completely unperturbed, she continued grinning. "Absolutely no idea!"

He snorted. "Great. Well, this," he flipped the pages back to a sketch, "is a side-view of the walls. Or at least it's supposed to be. I guess it's what passes for one of his sketches."

Darcy's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait. These aren't yours?"

Stark looked appalled. "What? Do you think so low of me?" He put his hands against his chest as if mortally wounded. Darcy laughed.

"What are they for, anyway?"

Stark raised his eyebrow and pointed caustically at the giant metal box over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes.

"You know what I'm asking, Mr. Stark."

"Tony," he corrected immediately, "And…the machine is a bit of a gamble. Let's leave it at that."

"So…these are our mysterious ' _gambler's'_ schematics?"

"She's got it, folks!" Stark announced to no one.

Darcy nodded slowly. "So, if _you_ know what these mean and now we have a clean copy…"

"Then we can get to work with far less interruption," he agreed, grinning.

"What interruption?"

"If you hadn't done this, kid, I'd have had to call him every twenty minutes. So, uh," he turned his back to her and began pulling out some vaguely state-of-the-art-looking equipment, "thanks," he finally finished, muttering over his shoulder. Darcy smiled.

 **Day 13, 3:04AM**

 _Thud._

Darcy's eyes opened expectantly. Third time in the past week. Was this normal? Should she be asking someone about it, or would they only lie as Jarvis had that first time she'd heard it?

Jarvis said nothing tonight. He'd asked if she was all right, sounding genuinely concerned, the second time it had happened. She'd told him she was fine but she hadn't slept that night and she knew the instant she woke up she wouldn't be sleeping tonight, either.

The thuds continued. They frightened her the way a shadow frightens a child. It's worse, somehow, than seeing a monster. For the same reason horror films are always scarier when you can't see the Evil, the thuds were worse for her not knowing what made them. It's the not knowing that makes it scary. Humans are afraid of what they cannot understand and even more afraid of what they can't see, can't perceive, don't know. The human mind can cook up fears far worse than whatever the reality is.

Darcy felt that insidious apprehension crawl inside her skin. As was becoming habit, she studied the steady rhythm of her own breathing and prayed in her mind. The sounds finally stopped an hour later, but somehow the silence was worse.

 **Week 5**

Tony was a royal pain in the ass.

In his arms he held two large cylinders of probably hazardous material. The glass showed they held some kind of transparent, yellowish-green viscous fluid. Darcy leveled her gaze with him.

He wore a white shirt with various stains (oil, apoxy, lab experiments) and low-hanging jeans that were desperate for some belt support. His feet were bare. His hair was twisted in a dozen places. How the hell did he convince anyone he was a put-together billionaire? He looked homeless, dammit. But his face was bright and excited, 5-o'clock shadow notwithstanding.

"C'mon, help me out! They've got to be installed!"

"Tell me what's in them, Tony," Darcy growled in response.

"Nope," he popped the p and grinned back, "No ruining the surprise!"

No way was she losing an arm for this job. The last time Tony had tried to get her involved in one of his experiments she'd ended up with a scalded lab coat and the tips of her hair on fire. Now, with her hair tightly held back in a bun at the base of her neck and wearing a purple sweater with no hanging material, she shook her head.

"I have other responsibilities, Tony. Jane needs all my body parts _in tact_ and if you want me to be the flunkie for your special projects, you gotta pay me more."

Tony scoffed. "It's not for a special project, Darce. It's for the chamber. Which falls squarely within your job description!" he raised his eyebrows at her and gestured impatiently with both cylinders, jostling them in his arms.

She groaned. "What? The chamber has volatile material, too? The fuck, man, isn't _anything_ in this place safe?"

"Science isn't fun if it's safe," he quipped matter-of-factly, "Now take this one," he shifted the cylinder into her arms casually, "and follow me."

She wrapped her arms tightly around the metal-and-glass case. "Holy _shit_ , Tony. This thing weighs like thirty pounds!"

"Twenty-eight," he called back as the door to the chamber hissed, "and you made me hold both of them while you complained!"

Darcy was jolted out of her annoyance. The vault's door was _opening_. _Call me Harry Potter, folks, because I am entering the Chamber of Secrets!_ she thought gleefully.

Tony stepped inside, still barefoot. She scooted after him, hauling her load. The door shut automatically behind them with the sound of heavy bolts clunking into place. Darcy's eyes went wide.

"Safety precautions. It won't stay open, so you've got to have the code if you want to get out," he called back to her, his voice multiplying and folding over itself with the reverberation of being in close quarters.

"So when are going to give me the codes?" she called back.

"No way am I trusting you not to come in here without my permission," he coughed out a laugh, "I've got the codes, don't you worry."

She scowled and shifted the cylinder in her arms. Darcy looked around the room for the first time and, to her immediate disappointment, the chamber was empty. It was larger on the inside than she'd expected, though. _Must extend past the wall outside,_ she realized. Her eyes scanned their surroundings as Tony made his way to the back, entering a code into the wall with his free hand. She noticed there was a shiny silver plate in the center that contrasted with the rest of the grating on the floor.

"What's that for?" she asked, her voice echoing around them.

"It's a secret, Harriet the Spy. Quit with the questions and get your ass over here with that thing."

"Asshole," she muttered. The word bounced off the walls and she heard Tony cluck in disapproval as she lugged the cylinder towards him.

"Is that any way to treat your boss?" he asked. _Not my boss_ , she thought, and was about to vocalize the correction when he tacked on: "And be careful. Drop that stuff and we're both toast."

Darcy froze, the load suddenly feeling _much_ heavier.

"…what kind of toast? Like, sourdough or rye? Or, like, _burnt?_ "

Tony raised an eyebrow and she forced herself to gingerly hand over the cylinder. When the container was in his arms, he responded nonchalantly: "Molecularly deconstructed toast."

Ignoring her facial expression of horror, he placed the cylinder of goo into an awaiting slot in the wall and pressed a button next to it. It spun and was hidden seamlessly.

When they stepped out of the chamber, Darcy took a deep breath.

"Going to quit on me?" Tony asked. He sounded flippant and humorous about it, but that was the way he sounded about everything. Darcy knew him better than that by now. He had deep-seated issues with being abandoned and betrayed. And, God only knew why, but she didn't like being added to whatever list he had going in his head of the people who made him feel unworthy of their loyalty or affection. _Ugh. Psychological bullshit. If only I hadn't noticed his stupid insecurities then I wouldn't have to care._

"Ever hand me hazardous material without my express permission again and I'll murder you in your sleep," she replied, instead, and made her way calmly down the steps of the lab.

"Oh, come on!" he shouted after her. "It's yellow-green goop in a metal can! Of course it's hazardous! Do you expect me to spell _everything_ out for you?"

She rolled her eyes at his ribbing and left the lab for the day.

 **Week 6**

 _Thud. Thud. Thudthudthud._

Darcy flew up from her pillow, heaving for breath. _It was just a nightmare_ , she inhaled deeply. _Just a nightmare... The sounds have never been that loud before, so of course it was a nightmare._ Darcy rubbed her temples.

 _THUD._

Darcy's eyes widened and she whipped her head toward the door. _Where the fuck is Jane when you need a friend to hide under the covers with?_ She'd gone on one of her blasted conference trips and Darcy had stayed behind to help Tony with the chamber. The thuds were steadily getting closer. _Should've just told Tony off and gone with her_ , she thought as she frantically tripped out of her bed, groping blindly for the nightstand. Her glasses clattered to the floor in the darkness. The thuds stopped. _Nope._

"Jarvis!" she hissed. She waited. Jarvis didn't respond. _Holy shit, I'm going to die._ Darcy got down on her knees and started to feel for her glasses. _This is not the time to be cosplaying as Velma, Darcy!_ she shouted at herself inwardly. The thuds started up again, faster this time, getting closer. They were on her story of the building. She could hear grunting and labored breathing accompanying the familiar thuds.

She scrambled to her feet. Darcy closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. If there was anything she was not willing to be, it was a sitting duck.

There was only one exit to her apartment.

She took careful, measured steps toward her open bedroom door, slipping out. She cringed as the door squeaked on its hinges, but the thuds didn't seem to be affected this time. She hoped it was a coincidence that the thuds had stopped when her glasses fell. The thuds were still far enough away (she thought) that she still felt she had a chance. But the moment Darcy got out that door, there would be no more tip-toeing; she knew she'd have to book it to the elevator like Speedy Gonzalez on bath salts.

Finally, she found herself standing in front of the door with her hand on the knob. She couldn't recall how she got across the apartment; she was dazed and in the dark and blind without her glasses and it was practically a miracle she hadn't tripped over any of the furniture. But she was here now. Two beats of getting her head in order and she gauged the distance of the thuds. They were about to turn the corner. _Now or never, Lewis_. She nodded her head once with determination, yanked the door open, and shot down the hall in her pajamas and bare feet.

The light of the hallway in that pristine white building was blinding. She nearly ran into a wall. But she kept going because she could hear the thuds coming faster; she wasn't exactly light-footed, after all. She'd been terrible in ballet as a child. But she'd been fantastic at track.

Darcy shot around the corner and could see the elevator at the end of the hall. _I will **not** be a horror movie cliché. I will **not** be a horror movie cliché, _she repeated to herself like a mantra.

She tried to slow down quickly but still managed to collide with the elevator doors, taking a swift and painful blow to her shoulder. She ignored the pain and pressed the down button. It didn't take. She balked. She tried it again, but the button still didn't light up green. Forcing herself not to press the thing over and over again (the opening scene from _Stranger Things_ played in her head), Darcy spun around, looking anywhere for the entrance to the stairwell. But with startling clarity, it dawned on her…that the stairs were on the other side of the hall.

With horror-filled eyes, she stared at the wall with the blurry image of a man running down stairs to escape a pictographic fire. It was all the way over there…and she was all the way over here.

The thuds were still coming. They'd make it to that wall faster than she would.

"Jarvis," she called. No response.

The thuds were closer.

"Jarvis," she said, anxiety extending his name like a plea.

The grunts were louder.

"JARVIS!" she shouted, looking up and down the hallway. She rushed forward a several yards, trying the few nearby doors, but none of them opened. Usually they opened the moment you took the handles. Nothing was really "locked"; everything was programmed to open according to security clearance and Jarvis held those virtual keys. With growing panic, Darcy realized someone had either disabled Jarvis or disconnected him from the building.

Darcy raised her head to stare down the hall. _Well, only three choices now. Choice numero uno: Panic like a motherfuck. Choice numero dos: Shut down and be overtaken by whatever fate awaits me. Or, choice numero tres…_

"Come and get me, you big fucker! Come on!" she shouted, standing her ground firmly in the center of the hall with her back to the elevator. "You think you can take me, asshole?" The "asshole" wasn't in view yet, but the thuds were slowly approaching now, not as frenzied as before. Even if it had been in view, she probably wouldn't have been able to see it, though. Darcy wondered how intimidating she really seemed at that moment, wearing an oversized Mighty Morphin Power Rangers t-shirt and Slytherin flannel PJ bottoms, her hair in two messy pigtails, squinting hard at whatever she might (but probably wouldn't) see coming.

The plan was bound to fail but if she was going out by the hand of some mystery monster, she was going out her own way. She labeled it Operation Toro in her mind to calm herself. She just had to get the bull to charge and then, hopefully, she could be fast enough to evade it while it rammed itself into the hard metal elevator. _It'd serve that elevator right_ , she considered. Vaguely, she wished she were wearing something red to complete the comparison.

As irony would have it, it was not red but green that emerged. Whatever shape it took she couldn't make out. She watched as the flash of bright emerald shot out from behind the corner and charged at her. The Big Blob of Green was coming at her fast.

And then…it stopped.

It huffed.

Darcy stood stock still, wound tight as a violin string. Why wasn't it charging?

The beeping of an override code being accepted rang out behind the Blob and it shifted again as if startled. Darcy heard a door slide open, indicating it was an entrance to an adjacent hall. Then, a voice beyond the corner started calling out, singing a soothing song in a language Darcy didn't speak. The Blob shifted. The voice was male, a gentle tenor, and it took a moment before it registered for Darcy that the voice was _very_ familiar. Her face softened as she watched the Blob return to the corner and follow the music.

It was a good twenty minutes later that Jarvis, suddenly back online, found Darcy frozen in place in the hallway outside the elevator.

"Darcy. Is everything alright?" Darcy blinked. _Am I **alright**? Where have you **been** , man? Oh, wait…_

"Jarvis…," she breathed, coming back to herself. She looked up and smiled—grinned, actually. "Hey! I was scared something had happened to you!"

"I apologize. There appears to have been some sort of…malfunction. I'm back on line and so is the elevator." Darcy glanced behind her as the doors opened. Dazed, she stepped inside.

"So, you weren't watching…you weren't around the past few hours, or what?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Did I miss anything of importance, Darcy?" The way the A.I. drawled the question made Darcy smile. He was a sarcastic one. She considered telling him what she'd just been through, but she wasn't really in the mood to be "debriefed." She shrugged. If anyone asked, she'd explain it. But if her best guess was right—that she'd nearly just gone mano-a-mano with the friggin' Hulk—then she figured it was a hazard of living in the Tower. She just hoped they wouldn't let him on her floor again the next time they let the big guy out of his super-sized play pen. Darcy drew a blank. _Wait. Where the hell would they even **put** a room big enough in the Tower for a dude his size?_

"…Miss Lewis?"

"Huh?" she jumped a bit. The doors to the elevator were still open. How many times had Jarvis called her name before he'd resorted to her old title?

"Which floor?" he asked slowly, as if repeating himself. It was still around 3 in the morning and she had no excuse for why she wanted to get into the elevators to begin with.

"Uh…," she finally gave up. "I…couldn't sleep. So, let's just do some exploring. Surprise me, buddy."

 **9:23AM (Six Hours Later)**

Darcy watched Tony from her seat. Jane would be coming back tomorrow so, at least for today she could afford to pretend to do the work Jane had assigned while secretly using the time to study the other scientist.

Visually, he looked generally the same as always. But Darcy started to realize that he always looked _very_ tired, especially the days after A Disturbance. Did it always end the way it did last night?

Darcy wondered what it'd take to get Tony to sing for her. _He has a nice voice,_ she thought. _I hope he sings for Pepper. If I were her, I'd demand it every night before bed. It'd conk me right out—I mean, if I hadn't just been running for my life. Extenuating circumstances and all that._

She munched on some organic sweet potato chips she'd found in the community kitchen. She'd found a lot in the community kitchen last night, including a Russian assassin and gruff archer. They turned out to be pretty chill and the three of them had spent the rest of the wee hours talking about global politics and Power Rangers. Not in conjunction, of course. _Although, the global politics involved in Power Rangers would be sort of interesting. I mean, they're tasked to protect Earth but they're all American. What, the only "teenagers with attitude" live in the U.S.? That feels ethnocentric…,_ she nodded to herself and popped another chip in her mouth.

"What are you nodding about?"

Darcy turned to Tony as he came down the steps, "Just agreeing with myself."

"You should nip that in the bud," he replied, leaning in to steal one of her chips.

"Hey!" her mouth was open in plain offense.

"Are you pissed I told you to stop agreeing with yourself or because I stole your food?"

"Because you stole my food, man. That breaks all the rules of friendship. You've never asked permission."

Tony tilted his head at her as a dog might and seemed to mull something over. She hoped to God he'd just accept the friendship comment. Thankfully, he asked: "Is this something I have to ask for every time, or…?"

"No, no," she shook her head vehemently, black hair sliding over her shoulders. "One-time agreement. It's contractual. If I agree once, you are always allowed to nab food off my plate, whether figuratively or literally. In this case," she gestured to the chips, "my plate is a bag and I did not provide the initial agreement."

"Can agreement be revoked?"

"At any time, yes. And if I agree to it you agree to the converse—i.e., if you accept my offer to eat from my plate, I then have the right to eat from yours."

Tony nodded slowly. "I hope your philosophy on this is unique to food."

She grinned. "It is. So, if I agree to handle hazardous materials today, it does _not_ mean I will handle them tomorrow, as well!"

"Glad that's cleared up," he intoned. "Can I have more chips now?"

Darcy pretended to think hard. Finally, she acquiesced and held out the bag. Tony grinned and Darcy was comforted to see some lines of stress and exhaustion bleed out of his face. _Poor guy._

"So, I heard some weird noises last night. Loud banging." She'd said it as casually as possible, but her hand under the table tugged on her sweater sleeve in mild anxiety. Call it overcautious, but the last few times she'd been witness to government secrets it hadn't gone well for her. For instance, she now had to lie to her parents about her job and where she lived and who she knew. She'd also been moved across the globe multiple times against her own volition. Big Government Secrets = Bad for Darcy.

To her relief, Tony shrugged. "Jarvis told me. Sorry it woke you." Darcy stared a moment as he nibbled on her chips. He seriously didn't know. The building was blind without Jarvis. The weight of that sunk into her stomach and sent chills down her spine.

"Uh…you fixed Jarv, right? You know, for security purposes?"

Tony glanced up, his tired chocolate eyes seeming even darker and heavier-lidded with fatigue. "I found the glitch. We're all good." Something about the way he said "glitch" didn't comfort Darcy at all; it sounded like a lie. It reminded her of the bullshit Jarvis fed her about "activity" during her first few days at Stark Tower. He's neglected to mention that the "activity" was very big and very green. She wondered with a nagging dread what Tony was neglecting to mention about this so-called "glitch."


	4. The Innocent Bystander

**_The Innocent Bystander_**

 **Week 5**

Darcy rocked back and forth on the heels of her boots as the elevator made its way up. This had become routine. She'd get out of bed, take a ten-minute shower, dress, jump in the elevator, and…

"Lewis! Hey, I made pancakes," Clint greeted her as she stepped out into the kitchen. He was wearing an apron that had a cartoon of a chef on it. While Darcy knew on an intellectual level that this man could kill, had killed, and would not hesitate to kill again in the proper circumstances, on an emotional level within the past several weeks she'd learned to associate him only with the same jovial vivaciousness her own uncle had emanated throughout her childhood when he'd come over on the weekends and teach her how to bake muffins. Clint, in Darcy's mind, would always be the Pancake Guy in the Goofy Apron, archery abilities be damned.

"Hey, man! Tell me they've got blueberries."

"They've got blueberries," Natasha replied curtly from her place at the edge of the bar, eyes never leaving the newspaper. She sipped from her black coffee. Darcy had quickly learned not to take offense at Natasha's demeanor; she was abrupt and stoic but if she'd truly disliked Darcy, then Darcy figured she'd probably already be dead.

"Sick boots, Lewis," Clint said as he dropped a plate at her designated place. Darcy grinned. They had spike studs on the toes and she really did appreciate that Clint noticed details like that. In her mind, that was the coolest thing about assassins; they were observant, even about her fashion choices.

"I could get some made for you with poison on the tips. They'd be useful in a fight," Natasha added in a conversational tone.

"Or, hey, we could get her some with a hidden blade in the front," Clint chirped back, stirring up the last of the batter.

"The only thing I'd be missing is that bowler hat from _Goldfinger_ that cuts off heads," Darcy quipped brightly. Clint and Natasha both shrugged; they'd only been half-joking.

It was almost okay that she now lied to her family regularly and slept in the same building as a giant green monster. This had become the thing that brought Darcy from the edge of depression: this kitchen, with its smell of pancakes and bacon and coffee, and the two assassins in pajamas with their irreverent sense of humor and penchant for absurd conversation.

What Darcy wasn't familiar with was the fourth cup of coffee on the bar. "Is there somebody else here?" she jutted her head out at the cup as she mixed half-and-half into her own Miss Piggy mug.

Natasha glanced up briefly. "Steve. He just got back from a mission."

"…Steve?" Darcy tried not to get too excited. "Steve as in…Rogers?" Clint and Natasha shared a look—Clint was smirking, but Natasha's expression spoke of some exasperation.

" _Yes_ , Steve Rogers."

"Captain America, the one and only," Clint grinned, finally taking his seat on a stool next to Darcy.

"What's he like?"

"Ask him yourself," Natasha said mildly as a harried and groggy figure stumbled into the room from the elevator. The all-American jaw was as chiseled in real life as it had looked to Darcy in news reels from the 40's.

"Ask me what, ma'am?" His voice was gravelly with the remnants of sleep.

 _Ma'am,_ Darcy thought gleefully. _He actually says '_ ** _ma'am_** Steve made a beeline for his coffee but stopped short as he caught Darcy's unfamiliar Cheshire grin.

"Hello there," he blinked. His eyes scanned over what he could see of her from the opposite side of the bar—a woman in black glasses with black hair and green eyes, wearing a blazer, inexplicably, over a Nirvana shirt.

"Hi!" was Darcy's intelligent response.

She knew she probably looked like an idiot, staring at him in idolization, but he was _Captain Freaking America in the flesh_.

"I'm Steve. It's a pleasure," he smiled genially, holding out his hand.

Darcy took it, grin never leaving her face. As an afterthought, she finally said, "Darcy. That's uh…my name." Steve smiled again and gingerly took his hand back (Darcy realized she'd forgotten to let go.)

The silence stretched on a minute as Steve didn't sit and Darcy said nothing else. "Well," Clint drawled out, clearly amused at the awkwardness. Natasha snorted and went back to reading the paper.

"Why is it that I never saw any of you guys during my first few weeks here?" Darcy said after a moment. "I mean, I didn't even know Capt— _Steve,_ " she corrected herself quickly, "lived in this building."

Natasha smiled at this, but still didn't look up from her paper. "It's probably because we all sleep on the sixty-ninth floor."

Darcy balked. "No."

"Yes," Clint smiled back, mouthful of pancake.

"So, Tony not only made a phallic building, but he put all the superheroes on the _sixty-ninth floor?_ " Darcy clarified.

Clint nodded, chuckling. Steve, on the other hand, looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"We tried explaining the joke to Steve…," Natasha started to say, but Steve interrupted, his face turning red.

"And I still don't get it," he insisted. This only made Clint laugh more.

The morning proceeded more or less normally after that, with everyone eating in relative silence. After all, none of them were exactly morning people, barring Natasha (she seemed to be perfectly awake and aware regardless of the time of day or how much sleep she'd gotten the night before.)

Suddenly, the woman in question made a huffing sound, her eyes narrowing at the newspaper in her hands. Darcy noticed her jaw tighten. "TV," Natasha ordered.

Clint took the initiative and grabbed the remote. "News?" She gave a curt nod in the affirmative.

The kitchen adjoined a large living room. The television was set up perpendicular to a massive window overlooking a breathtaking view of the city, miles of New York architecture. As the TV powered up, Natasha left her seat, coffee, and paper and made her way into the living area. She stood behind one of the three couches, her shoulders squared. Clint and Steve both made to join her. Hesitating, Darcy glanced into the room then back at her pancakes longingly. Shrugging resignedly, she slowly rose from her seat and followed.

As they all stood, the voice of a female news journalist gave a report on recent comments made by a candidate for Prime Minister in France. They had come in halfway through her report, so Darcy didn't catch the context—that is, until the channel played a clip of a well-dressed woman giving remarks at a rally. Her eyes were narrow, her nose pointed, her eyebrows plucked into thin lines, and her brown hair slicked back into a tight bun at the base of her neck.

"So-called superheroes," the translation dubbed over her voice, "are the real danger to the civilized world. Whether they are powered or trained, they are unnatural. They are the new nuclear bombs—if nuclear bombs had their own agendas, desires, and ulterior motives. Governments who use such volatile agents cannot be trusted because they cannot possibly control these creatures. When I am elected, I promise passage of a resolution in the United Nations to ban the use of superhuman forces!"

The TV went black. Darcy saw that Clint was clutching the remote. Natasha stood preternaturally still.

" _Creatures?"_ she spoke with chilling clarity in the echoing silence of the room. Darcy watched the back of her red head, not daring to move.

"Unnatural," Clint added, still gripping the remote with white knuckles.

Steve sighed and padded, barefoot, back to the kitchen. He shook his head, but said nothing.

Eventually, they all found their way back to their seats, eating in tense silence.

At long last, Darcy couldn't hold it in anymore. "I'd like to see _her_ save New York City," she griped into her Miss Piggy mug. To her right, she was proud to see Natasha slightly relax and almost smile.

 **8:54AM**

Darcy was glad she'd negotiated for a later work time in the lab because she much preferred having breakfast with her assassins (when she'd begun to think of them as "hers," she couldn't say, but she absolutely thought of them with a possessive joy.) The only downside was that she was shit at time management. She was practically running down the white halls, her arms packed with the notes she'd taken last night ("homework" Tony had called it, but it was really just another transcription of the Mystery Scientist's newest stack of chicken-scrawled notes.)

As she approached the huge glass doors of the lab, she recognized the black-clad figure of Director Nick Fury—with whom she'd counted herself lucky enough to have only met once prior—engaged in what was clearly an argument with Tony Stark.

Darcy slowed her steps, catching her breath. From Tony's face and posture, she could guess this was not the sort of conversation she wanted to walk in on. She knew that face; it was his cutting-remark face. And the way he was standing looked like her stepbrother when he was considering throwing a punch at someone who had called their mother something nasty. Director Fury was facing away from the door, so she could draw no conclusions about his state of mind. His shoulders were perpetually tense beneath the black leather, so his posture told her nothing. They made an interesting picture—Tony, in a barefoot fighter's stance in his white t-shirt and jeans versus Fury, unflinching in black leather.

After what looked to be a particularly fuck-you comment from Tony, Darcy saw Fury's head incline and he made to move on his heel. Panicking, she power-walked to the other side of the hall and turned her back toward the glass. She pretended to go over some of her notes, doing to best to look as if she _hadn't_ just been peering in on their argument. In doing so, she unwittingly allowed herself to be rammed in the back by the opening door—why Fury had used _that exit_ instead of the automatic sliding door further down the hall was beyond her. She tumbled forward, shocked, papers flying from her hands and her glasses clattering to the floor. _Bastard probably knew I was eaves-watching and wanted to teach me a lesson._ She cursed and got to her knees, reaching out to gather all the notes she'd written the night before. But as she squinted all around the floor, she realized she couldn't see her glasses anywhere. "Shit."

"Interesting choice in eyewear." Darcy slowly raised her eyes to the dark figure looming over her, holding her glasses in his hand. The owner of the deep voice made no gesture to indicate he had plans to return them to her. Darcy was surprised he'd stuck around; she thought he must have already made his way down the hall in his Dr. No get-up after he'd hit her with the door. With a flare of annoyance, she found herself responding with more snark than perhaps was smart to use with one's boss's boss.

"I kind of need them," she bit back, climbing to her feet. "You know…to see? What, did you think everyone who works here just magically has 20/20 vision?" She paused abruptly at his raised eyebrow…over his unseeing eye. Her own eyes widened when it dawned on her. _Backpedal like the Dickens, man. Stat._ "I…just realized how insensitive that sounded. You know, to say…to you…since…you know." She was floundering. She'd just made a sarcastic comment about eyesight to a dude who only had one working eye. Darcy watched him closely as she swallowed, fearing the worst. Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched as if he struggled to hold back a smirk and he let the eyebrow drop.

"I was referring, Miss Lewis, to the color of the frames."

This only served to further confuse her. The glasses were black on the outside with grape inner trimming. "Uh…I like purple?" He hummed and handed the glasses back to her. She'd squinted through their entire conversation, but even with her best attempts to focus her eyesight she couldn't sort out the expression on Fury's face. Putting the glasses on didn't help in that regard. Even as she watched him walk away, black leather duster fanning out in the wake of his stride, she still couldn't properly categorize that look in his eyes. If she didn't know any better, she'd call it _kindness_. And it was fucking _unsettling_.

Trying to shrug off the feeling that Fury had just analyzed her very soul, Darcy stepped into the lab. Tony was bent over the table on the upper portion of the room, the muscles in his arms working out the tension of their own accord. He was breathing heavily.

"…Need some space?" she asked gently. He glanced over his shoulder.

"It's not that I need space. You're a sight for sore eyes, Darce," he heaved a sigh, "but I have some things I've got to work on alone today."

"With the chamber?" she asked, walking to the other side of the table to set the papers down in order to give him more breathing room. He nodded.

"Yeah, with the chamber. It…has a weakness in the system. Fury," he said the name with spite, "brought it to my attention after Jarvis glitched the other day."

"What kind of weakness?" Darcy didn't entirely know what she was asking since she didn't even know what the chamber was supposed to _do_ , but if it was bothering Tony, she wanted to give him a compassionate ear. _Well, that and I'm a busy-body_ , she admitted to herself.

Tony straightened up and ran his fingers through his already-messy hair, gesturing vaguely at the holographic blueprints on the table. "It looks like if we lose power it could disable the chamber's cooling system and the all-important goo could overheat."

"And if that happens…?"

"If that happens, the building is, well..."

"Toast?" Darcy supplied.

"Yeah."

Darcy gnawed at her bottom lip.

A moment later, they both heard the glass door slide open. Jane strolled in, her face in a manual of some kind, chewing on her thumbnail and muttering something about wormholes. Darcy gave Tony her most supportive, understanding smile. He grimly smiled back, then gave her a wink that said, _Go on, go help your lunatic boss._

Darcy spent the rest of her day with Jane talking about how to build a new bridge between realms. Thor had only come to Earth at the cost of some Asgardian resource that was in short supply and had since been incapable of staying. Jane loved the man to death and wanted to be able to see him again. Moreover, it was in everyone's best interest to, in Darcy's own words, "make inter-realm travel a thing again," just in case Earth needed Asgardian aid in another Loki-like situation. Jane had some new ideas, but it would require some major changes to her current designs.

All the while they worked and discussed, Tony labored away in the upper level, his attention never leaving the blueprints.

 **Friday, 12:43PM**

Later that week, Tony announced to Darcy that the fix for the weakness was almost complete. He said all that was left was to find a way to get the cylinders cool "beyond freeing them in the event of an emergency."

"Maybe you could get them to self-eject."

"Great idea," Tony scoffed, "We'll get them to eject from the walls inside the chamber so they can crack open and kill everyone. Problem solved."

Darcy snorted and went back to the blueprints. "Sarcastic bastard," she muttered.

A buzzing sound came from behind her, followed by a mild curse. Darcy looked up from the holographs; on the level below, Jane was nursing a small wound on her thumb.

"Did the equipment fight back again?" she called down.

"It's stubborn," Jane replied, pouting.

Tony coughed. "That woman is allergic to electricity," he said under his breath, eyebrows raised at Darcy.

"Oh contraire," she grinned, standing, "electricity loves her. It keeps coming back for more."

"Obviously," he smiled crookedly.

Darcy made her way down the steps, asking each scientist if they were up for coffee. Over the past week, she'd created another routine: Starbucks runs.

Fifteen minutes later, she was walking back into Stark Tower bearing a tray of coffee cups. As soon as she entered the building, however, she realized that something was very, _very_ wrong.

In fact, as she turned back to glance out the glass doors, she realized that none of the guards usually present were in their places. She'd been able to get into the front doors without anyone giving her a sideways glance. She turned back to the lobby where she stood.

"Uh…Jarvis? Where is everybody?"

No response.

 _Holy fuck; not again._

The lights were still on, but clearly Jarvis had been disabled. Darcy sighed. At least if the lights were still on, the chamber goo was still being cooled. _Thank God for small mercies_.

She considered making her way to the stairs, but that was a hell of a long way up. She considered her options. _I could leave the building? Probably a good idea, since the guards just up and left…_ There was an obvious possibility that Darcy didn't want to consider—that the guards _hadn't_ just abandoned their posts willy-nilly and rather had been forced to defend the tower in another, more _proactive_ way. Darcy told herself there was no reason to panic. Except she was panicking. She didn't want to leave the tower until she knew Jane was safe…

It was at that moment she heard footsteps down the hall on the right. The lobby was huge and it echoed every little sound—even the sound of people creeping. Whoever was walking didn't want to be heard at all. Darcy's heartbeat began to pound. She had no where to hide. And even if there was someplace for her to crawl into, they'd hear her heavy footfalls.

 _Maybe they're just SHIELD agents._

No such luck. Around the bend came two men dressed in black wielding large guns. Darcy was frozen in place. One of the shooters aimed at her—and _smiled_.

 _Fuck this._ Darcy dropped the tray of coffee, the hot liquid spraying across the marble floor, and took off running for the opposite wall. At least there she might have a chance of getting to the stairwell without getting riddled with bullets.

She heard laughter behind her from both men. Somehow, their laughter sounded foreign—like it was accented. _What are they laughing at? The woman running for her life?_

Darcy got the joke when she reached the stairwell. They'd let her make it there just so they could see her response when the door _didn't open_. Just like the doors in the hallway when she'd been running from the Hulk, this door wouldn't open without Jarvis's say-so. And Jarvis wasn't online. So she was screwed.

Darcy slowly turned to face her to-be killers. They grinned back at her, dark figures with guns that seemed relatively small in the large expanse of a bright room with a vaulted ceiling. Of all the emotions to be feeling in the moment before death, the ones that gripped Darcy seemed rather inappropriate. _This would make a good photograph._ And: _That mercenary would actually be kind of cute if he weren't a cold-blooded killer._ And, finally: _I'm going to come back as a ghost and haunt Thor, Fury, and Stark—_ ** _in that order_** _—for the shit they pulled me and Jane into._

Her next thought, as the "cute" mercenary raised his gun to end her life, was one of confusion.

Those thuds were familiar.

Both men adopted identical expressions of bewilderment. Something large was coming down the same hall they'd just sneaked through. And it sounded like it was picking up speed.

They turned away from their trapped prey to face the new, unknown threat. Darcy grinned at their backs. They had no idea…

Around the bend came something—some _one_ —that she'd only seen once before as a huge smear of green, but was now clearly defined as an oversized man…or something like it. The two mercenaries started to breathe heavily, frantic. In a language Darcy didn't recognize, the ugly one gave the cute one an order, and both men released a barrage of gunfire. Darcy didn't know why, but she screamed.

"NO! Don't you dare fucking hurt him!" She started to run forward—to do what, she didn't know yet—but stopped short when she saw that the bullets were effortlessly _bouncing off_ the Hulk's skin. Several of the deflected bullets came close to her and she jumped back to avoid becoming collateral damage. One light blew out on the ceiling. One of the shooters got hit in the leg and cursed violently in the same foreign language as before. The other shooter ran out of bullets. He started to run for the exit, but the Hulk immediately intercepted him in one short strike and thrashed him against the wall. He hit the floor and didn't move.

Darcy stared, wide-eyed, as the second shooter began to limp in the opposite direction, ditching his gun on the floor. As the Hulk took another, slower step toward him, the man began to speak rapidly—probably begging. Darcy didn't look as he, too, was flung against the wall furthest from her.

When she opened her eyes, the Hulk was staring at her. She backed up even further against the door that wouldn't open, trying the doorknob with her hand. _No such luck_.

It took three strides forward, coming up to her. Closer now, she saw he was frothing at the mouth. His skin was dirty, his hair wild. He breathed in great gasps, as if he were in a constant state of losing control.

His shadow spilled over her; they were nearly toe-to-toe. She had to bend her head all the way back to look into his eyes. And then…there.

His eyes were green, obviously. And many times the size of her own. But, they were also… Darcy couldn't find a name for it. Suddenly, the fear melted. She wasn't gripping at the doorknob anymore. She was tilting her head to the side, trying to get a better look at the giant green man standing over her. She didn't even question that he had yet to kill her; she was too engrossed in that look in his eyes. He seemed so... _Tortured. That's the word. The poor guy looks_ ** _tortured._**

Mindlessly, she reached out for his face, even knowing that she'd have to be Mr. Fantastic to reach up that high. But the movement seemed to startle him; he suddenly jerked back, grunting. Rather than be jolted into reason, Darcy found the action aggravating and followed him. For every half-step he took, she took four of her own. His facial expression spoke volumes; she confused him, maybe even scared him, and he couldn't figure out why the hell _she_ wasn't afraid of _him_. He kept grunting and jerking away as if he didn't want to be touched. And she kept pressing forward, her hand stretched out to him.

Somehow—Darcy was so entranced she wasn't thinking much about the bizarre nature of the entire situation—he was shrinking in size. It was slow at first, but eventually Darcy absentmindedly took it in stride (literally) and used the opportunity to grab at his wrist. He tried in vain to pull away, gently it seemed, and broke eye contact. She huffed, her hand barely being able to hold onto his large wrist, even as he was shrinking; he didn't want to lose her touch but he wanted to tell himself he was putting up a fight.

"Oh, stop running away!" she found herself scolding him, "You know, you're acting like a coward, you big green thug!" He didn't respond. The grunting had stopped altogether.

It seemed he'd finally reached human-size—still several inches taller than her. The green began to fade from his complexion. He ended up as a nude man (what was left of some over-stretched shorts fell limply to his feet) with dirt smeared across his pale skin, a thick line of chest hair, and curls tangled in a mop against his forehead. He swayed on his feet.

Darcy saw the tell-tale signs of impending unconsciousness, and she reached her arms out. This time he couldn't pull away. He collapsed almost immediately, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

His weight was more than Darcy could really hold. They both sank to the floor, his head lolling against her shoulder. He smelled of sweat and, oddly, ink.

Darcy considered her options. There could be more shooter dudes in the building.

"Miss Lewis? Are you…?" Jarvis's voice was a welcome one.

Calmly, Darcy smiled. "Hey, Jarv. Uh, I'm okay, but do you know where this guy's room is?"

"Indeed. It is several floors above your own."

"Groovy. Do you think if I can get him to the elevators, you could send us on up?"

In response, the Jarvis opened the elevator doors. Darcy smiled by way of thanks and began the laborious process of dragging the naked man to the elevator. _This was a bad day to wear a dress and heels_ , she thought. She stopped briefly to remove the shoes, then took hold of his torso to yet again haul his dead weight toward the opening.

Once inside the lift, Jarvis sent them up. Darcy watched as the numbers went higher and higher until they reached 70. He lived, it seemed, in the floor above the other Avengers.

The doors opened.

"All clear, right Jarv?"

"The floor is safe, Darcy." He was back to calling her Darcy. She supposed that was a good sign.

She stood and dragged the mystery man carefully from the elevator to the only door she could see on the entire floor other than the stairwell opening at the far end of the hall.

"This must be it," she muttered to the unconscious man in her arms. She heard Jarvis unlock the door for her.

She reached out for the knob and pushed it open; the door was heavier than it looked. As she stepped in, she saw how thick the walls were from the side and wondered what it was reinforced with. She shrugged. _Must be his place._

It was sparsely decorated. Sparsely as in _not_ decorated. The walls were high and white. The window was large with a beautiful view of the city. The only furniture in the front living room was a single, brown couch in the center. A plain brown rug lay in front of it on top of the white carpeting.

She dragged him in, but as she glanced at the couch, she couldn't find it in her to lift him again, so she instead rested his body against it.

Darcy stood, preparing to leave, when the throw blanket that sat on one seat caught her attention. She eyed it for a moment, considering. Finally making up her mind, she picked it up and carefully unfolded it. She stared briefly at the Indian designs on the blanket, quietly admiring the clearly handmade workmanship. Sighing, she leaned down to drape it over his body. For whatever reason, it felt like the right thing to do.

As Darcy left the room and shut the door behind her, she heard (and felt) her cell phone ring from within her bra. The ringtone was "She Blinded Me with Science" so Darcy already knew who was calling. She tugged it out. The title "BOSS LADY" with a photo of Jane asleep at her desk back in New Mexico appeared on her screen.

"Hey."

"Darcy?" came Jane's frantic voice. "Are you okay? The building got infiltrated by something called HYDRA. All the other non-combat agents got put on lockdown but you were on a coffee run so I wasn't sure if you weren't in the building or if you got to safety in time or if you were even _ALIVE_ —"

"Hey! Hey," Darcy cooed, "It's okay. _I'm_ okay. I'll be at the lab in a minute, alright?"

She got into the elevator and the doors closed to the seventieth floor.


	5. The Guinea Pig: Part I

**_The Guinea Pig: Part I_**

AUTHORESS NOTE: _Yeah, okay, I've been gone about a year. But I don't forget about my fiction. Let's hear it for what I'm pretty damn sure is the longest chapter I've posted on any of my fanfictions, ever. So much so that I had to break it into two separate chapters, and they're still monsters in word count. How's that for a comeback?_

 _I should note that in this reality, Bruce Banner isn't widely known as the Hulk. It's considered privileged/classified information. The world at large knows there IS a Hulk, but it doesn't know that the Hulk is also a man and that said man's name is Dr. Bruce Banner, owner of seven PhDs. So, there is that. Brucey Boy is living in relative anonymity with the exception of some of the SHIELD employees who have a high enough clearance._

 _Oh, and also: Reviews are greatly appreciated. I'm quite serious. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed; I bake ye virtual brownies to express my gratitude. To all those too shy thus far to leave a comment, please let me know what your thoughts are! I'll take the good with the bad with the random with the weird. Let me hear it, babes._

 _i_

Eventually, life went more or less back to normal. Security protocols were changed. Tense arguments were had behind closed doors. Darcy wasn't privy to most of what was going on, but all she knew was that she had to file a report to her superiors and was required to see a counselor for at least a month. She attended them religiously, but mostly ended up talking to the shrink about their favorite Disney movies. Her trauma was there, but minimal. The doc (Jackie was her name) gave Darcy a few breathing techniques in case an anxiety attack ever came on but said she didn't think she'd need them. Darcy didn't have the heart to tell her she'd been through enough shit in her life that she already knew all the techniques. Most of them didn't help. But Jackie didn't need to know that.

She got an all-clear, and the sessions ended. Darcy continued to drop by every once in a while to give Jackie chocolate truffles (her favorite). Once, she thought she saw Clint leaving her office, but she couldn't be sure. The fact that the figure had disappeared down the hall so quickly, however, almost made her certain it was the archer. The stealth was, ironically, a dead give-away. But Darcy had no intention of asking. Whatever he needed to talk about was between him and a (badly) trained professional. If he ever wanted to open up to her about it, he knew how to find her (and probably would know how to find her even in a dark and dangerous environment, should the circumstances arise). Until then, he had her to eat pancakes with in the early mornings.

A lot had happened, but Darcy was good at rolling with the punches. As the tensions rose in the building between Tony and Fury, and as more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents seemed to be on staff than ever before, she found ways to adapt. Playing AC/DC in the lab helped calm Stark, and, strangely, she'd gotten in the habit of giving Fury an as-yet unreciprocated smile whenever she passed him in the hallways. He hadn't returned any and gave no indication he even acknowledged her presence, but Darcy could hope it was making some sort of dent. He deserved smiles from people just as much as anyone else, even if he _was_ a raging prick.

What Darcy _hadn't_ expected, and was somewhat less prepared to handle, was a newcomer.

The third voice was throwing her off. She'd come to know Jane's voice—somehow both patronizing and matronly, sweet yet hyperlogical—through the seemingly innumerable days Jane would rant to her in the hot New Mexican sun and the equally endless nights she learned to sleep through Jane talking in her sleep on the trailer bunk above Darcy's. She knew Tony's voice now almost as well as she knew Jane's. He was condescending—not in the kind, 2nd-grade-teacher way Jane was, but in the arrogant-asshole way. His voice had a lilt, almost. It was musical.

And Darcy had heard the way both of those voices regarded the voices of various interns and lab hands that, evident even over the course of Darcy's brief tenure, had a higher turnover rate than the rulers of the Roman Empire.

This third voice was not being treated like a lab flunky by Jane or Tony. The voice was quiet but commanding—very _de facto_. It wasn't deep but was subtly powerful, vibrating in the open space. And the way this voice was talking science was not like the speaker was desperate for validation, or pompous about his knowledge, or even recognized that the words coming out of his mouth were so technical they barely counted as English. The owner of this voice was not trying to prove anything. It was apparent by his tone of voice that he had nothing to prove but mathematical figures.

Darcy stood, coffee tray in her hands, hearing this new voice float out of the open glass door. _Why is it that whenever I go to get coffee, I come back to something bizarre?_

And it _did_ seem bizarre, watching Jane and Tony defer to someone. She couldn't see the guy's face. He wore tennis shoes with slacks and a tucked-in blue Oxford shirt with a dark tattersall pattern, the sleeves rolled up just below the elbows of stocky arms. And from behind, his head was a mess of brown curls, like he'd never figured out how to manage his own hair. It was a discordant look, Darcy thought. His back to her, he was bent over the blueprints, scribbling something ( _left-handed,_ Darcy noted). And Tony and Jane simply stood on either side of him, just _watching_.

Finally, Darcy decided to walk in. The sliding glass shut behind her with a _Star Trek_ sound effect, but no one noticed her entrance. They were in their little science bubble, the world outside a distant fiction compared to the physics, chemistry, and math laid out before them.

As she made her way up the steps, she caught bits and pieces of what this new voice was saying. Something about electromagnetism, coils, gaseous absorption, and molecular mutation.

Jane finally took note of the newest addition to their little party, her face brightening as Darcy made her way up the steps. Tony inclined his head. And, as they did so, the third scientist paused in his lecture to straighten and glance over his shoulder.

Darcy froze. His deep brown eyes were kind, but sharp, guarded…like he was making a concerted effort to appear nonthreatening, but was secretly analyzing her every movement. He turned his body more toward her now, tugging the glasses off the bridge of his nose. The smile he pasted on his lips didn't reach his eyes.

"Dr. Banner, meet our resident intern—"

" _Lab assistant,_ " Jane corrected Tony, shaking her head.

"Right, lab _intern_ ," he continued as Jane smirked and rolled her eyes. Dr. Banner glanced back and forth between them, then settled on the subject of their good-natured teasing: "Darcy Lewis, meet Dr. Bruce Banner."

Dr. Banner's wan smile grew fractionally. "It's good to meet you, Ms. Lewis."

"Oh, nah, man. You can call me Darcy. Even the regent A.I. is on a first-name basis with me." She grinned, but he didn't return it.

"I see," he responded. Darcy knew at that moment, with the stony and unreadable expression in his face, that he would never, _ever,_ be caught dead calling her "Darcy."

Darcy wasn't used to people disliking her the moment they met her. Granted, she'd had to deal with a lot of that when she was younger, and her old professors had been some real pricks, but not _here._ Not in _Superhero Science Land_. Here, she was the "normal" one that people didn't treat like a freak. She couldn't lie to herself and pretend that Dr. Banner's apparent immediate dislike didn't tear at her a little—not because she desired acceptance or because she was a people-pleaser (she might please folks, but that wasn't something she did because she wanted to be liked; she did it to be nice.) No, this tore at her because, after years of being treated like the local weirdo in her hometown, her schools, and her own family, she'd finally found a place where she had stopped _expecting_ to be treated that way. And here she was again…faced with someone who was distancing himself from her before she'd even gotten twenty words out of her mouth. _This is going to be aggravating._

Darcy followed his eyes as they took in her frame, both their gazes landing on the tray of coffee in her hands. She cursed her luck. "I, uh, wasn't told we'd be expecting another scientist."

"That's alright," he said, not unkindly, "I don't drink coffee."

Darcy's eyes grew wide in her head. Wow. This guy was _really_ not going to like her. It was like they were from different planets. A _scientist_ who didn't drink _coffee? I didn't even know scientists came decaffeinated_ , she snarked internally.

And then, apparently done with the interaction, he abruptly stepped down the stairs, carefully maneuvering past her, and settled himself in a corner of the lab—far, far away from the other occupants. He leaned over a microscope and slid in a petri dish. Darcy stared after him, blinking.

Behind her, she heard Tony scoff. "Don't mind him. He's _always_ this friendly."

"I heard that," Dr. Banner called mildly.

"So…he's going to be working with us from now on?" Darcy asked Tony quietly.

"Yep. I guess he wanted to micromanage his own baby," he shrugged.

Something clicked. Darcy's sight moved past Tony to the blueprints on the table, littered with notes in a script she automatically recognized. _Of course_ she recognized that handwriting; she'd been translating it for more than a month.

" _He's_ the gambler?"

"You actually call me that to other people?" Dr. Banner turned on his stool to raise an eyebrow at Tony.

"Yeah, kid," Tony replied, ignoring his colleague, "He's the gambler."

Darcy took a deep breath as she set down the coffees. _Well, isn't that_ _ **great**_ _._

 _ii_

Something about this guy was ringing bells. Darcy couldn't place it, but he looked strangely familiar. She figured she must have seen him in one of the classified videos she had totally not watched if any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was asking (politely asking a complicit A.I. apparently paid off). The guy definitely didn't know her. In fact, he looked right through her.

If first impressions aren't to be trusted, then their second interaction certainly was.

Darcy had been helping Jane re-wire some kind of particle thingamajig for a week by then (a week in the presence of Dr. Bruce Makes-Everything-Awkward), and Darcy had made a breakthrough while Jane was grabbing supplies from her backup laboratory/sometimes bedroom. The thing was, Jane had made a rookie mistake that even non-physicist Darcy had caught onto.

"It's a magnet!" Darcy screamed. She heard a little shuffling behind her, and a quick glance confirmed she'd startled the newest genius. He had his glasses perched on his nose and blinked at her owlishly, his teacup gripped in his hand. He looked none-too-pleased by the sudden outburst, but Darcy wasn't going to let him dampen her mood. She emerged from beneath the refrigerator-sized machine, dust on her heather-gray sweater and flyaway hairs haloing her head, holding a small black magnet in her hand. Magnets were used for various purposes around the lab with machinery, but this one had apparently found its way into a machine it didn't belong with. She couldn't be sure, but it had been positioned on an exposed circuit something-or-another haphazardly and, while she knew Jane was nothing if not haphazard, she didn't assemble her babies quite so carelessly. It was out of place and it was a strong sucker (she broke a nail tearing it away), so she had a hunch that she'd found at least part of reason the particle thingy wasn't, as she put it to Jane, "Uh, particle-ing?"

She stood up, hair a mess, magnet in hand, and dove head-first into a tirade about her discovery to the only other individual present.

"I mean, it might be nothing—hell, it probably didn't do anything, but still! A magnet on a circuit board! I'm not a scientist, but that's a problem, right? I'm not totally useless! I might have fixed the problem!" She grinned, standing directly in front of Dr. Banner, who up until now had been vaguely friendly if not distant. She heard the door open and saw Tony step into the room, who stopped to take in the strange look on his colleague's face. Banner was staring at Darcy as if she'd grown a second or perhaps third head. _Actually, no, he's probably seen that before. Mad scientist and all. He's looking at me a lot weirder than that,_ she thought _._ Still, she powered through. She wanted to engender some form of camaraderie if they were going to be working in the same space, even if he didn't like her.

"Dude, pound me!" She had her fist out, waiting to meet his, but nothing connected. After a moment, she raised her head from staring expectantly at her own fist to see what the hold-up was, only to find Dr. Banner looking at her with an expression of horror mingling with mortification. She observed as his eyes slowly lowered to take in her raised fist. His shoulders relaxed, and Darcy noted with perhaps some cruel joy that his face was turning red. He cleared his throat. _I'm not that forward, man,_ she scoffed.

"I don't think that's the best idea," Dr. Banner replied archly, then stood, turned on his heel, and stepped to the other side of the room to continue his work. Darcy told herself not to be offended, but she felt like a rejected puppy. The guy couldn't even _pretend_ to like working with her.

"That's a new color for you," she overheard Tony say, gesturing to his face, but Dr. Banner only politely told him to "watch it."

 _iii_

Unbeknownst to Darcy, this was beginning of A Thing.

The Thing, as Tony began to call it, was the almost-fights Darcy would get into with Bruce. They'd constantly be on the verge of an argument or would just have awkward-as-hell interactions.

Darcy would tease Bruce for the way he took his chamomile tea without sugar. She started to get it from the café with two heaping teaspoonfuls of honey just to "switch it up" as she called it, and Bruce responded by " _switching it up"_ to bottled water—which Darcy then used to insist he was slowly polluting the planet.

Darcy, who half-believed she was a reincarnated baby giraffe for how little balance she seemed to possess, broke several empty glass containers in the lab, cutting open her hand in the fall. The next time she lost balance, she tripped down the stairs of the lab. This time, Bruce launched himself from his seat and caught her by the elbow, saving her from a mostly-harmless descent; it wasn't a long way down, after all. Darcy tried to thank him, but Bruce only stared blankly at his fingers still clutching her arm, brusquely tore his hand away, and didn't say anything even work-related to her for several days.

When he did finally acknowledge her presence a week later, she was setting a revised report on his desk while he was deep in research. He only looked up for an instant, caustically remarking that she "should wear a bell." Darcy found that comment so sexist that she launched into a tirade of Gloria Steinem proportions. He only blinked back at her, a vein in his throat twitching. Darcy finally let up when his watch's alarm went off, figuring he had something important he needed to get to. He left the room in a rush.

Eventually, Bruce took to waiting to enter the lab until Darcy had left; in retaliation, Darcy started to stay later and later and deliberately made her schedule unpredictable—at first because she found it offensive that he was avoiding her, and later because she thought it hilarious that he was trying so hard. Finally (after about a week and a half), he gave up scheduling his lab time around her, recognizing it as a futile effort.

Finally, Tony bites.

The paper teacup made a dull sound as it settled in front of Bruce's microscope. "Okay, what gives? What don't you like about Lewis?"

Bruce raised his head from the scope and moved in his seat to see Tony looming behind him. He chewed on his words, slowly responding with: "I like her just fine, Tony."

"No, you don't," he returned, eyebrow raised. "You avoid her like the plague."

Bruce sighed, pushing away from his desk. He was relieved to find the rest of the lab staff was out to lunch; he wasn't keen on having this conversation at all, but at least they could have it privately. "I don't _dislike_ her, Tony. She's just…unpredictable. Her behavior isn't healthy for my… _blood pressure_." The emphasis he put on the phrase wasn't lost on Tony, so the billionaire decided to forgo the innuendo for once.

"So? So am I. I put your ' _blood pressure',_ " he inserted air-quotes for good measure, "through the roof. You said it's good for you to get desensitized."

"You're one thing, Tony," Bruce argued, taking off his glasses to rub at his forehead. "But having someone in the lab that trips over equipment, doesn't observe the boundaries of others' personal space, talks incessantly, and sings 80's pop ballads without warning when she enters the room isn't exactly a good idea for someone who can be dangerous when startled."

Tony snorted. "Bruce, we both know you're tough enough to handle a little Air Supply." And then, with finality: "Darcy stays."

Bruce looked up, shocked. "I wasn't asking you to get rid of her."

"No, but you were getting there, and I'm cutting you off at the pass. It ain't happening. So, get used to the kid." Bruce rubbed his forehead harder, aggravated at the insinuation (he'd only been angling for strictly separate schedules). Through his impending migraine, he heard Tony's last jab: "And if you ask me, the real reason you're acting like a prick is because you _like_ the unpredictability."

 _iv_

The thing that neither Bruce nor Tony seemed to realize was that Darcy leaving was not their decision to make.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Jane's voice cracked as she asked. Her voice was imploring, horrified.

Darcy shrugged, legs tucked under her on the couch. She plucked at the loose threads on the pillow in her lap, absently noting another broken nail on her index finger. _I should file that down_ , she mused. "I just knew you were stressed," she sighed, "over the whole building-got-infiltrated thing, and everyone was trying so hard to clean up the mess and not freak out over Jarvis being temporarily deactivated. The higher-ups knew because I had to file a report. I didn't think it was necessary to freak you out, too."

"You almost got _killed,_ " Jane emphasized, still pacing in front of the couch in Darcy's living room.

"I know," she nodded, coolly.

"By the _Hulk!_ " Jane added, still dismayed. But Darcy wasn't having that.

"No," she interjected, " _not_ by the Hulk. He saved me. Those HYDRA fuckers were gonna' turn me into Swiss cheese. I was almost holier than the Pope, Jane! The Big Green Guy saved my hiney."

Jane scoffed and stopped pacing, her back to Darcy. She crossed her arms.

"I can't see your face, but I can hear you chewing your lip," Darcy remarked. Finally, Jane turned back to her. Her face was etched with worry.

"Darcy…I don't like it."

"Neither do I."

"You should have told me."

"I'm telling you now."

"And why is that?" Jane asked, coming to sit beside her best friend on the couch.

Darcy watched her for a moment, then: "Do you think I ought to even _be_ here?"

Jane looked taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"I mean—" Darcy sighed and brought her hands up to rub her temples, closing her eyes from the inevitable look of hurt on Jane's face. "Jane, I was a political science major, okay? I help with this stuff because it's your passion, and I just kind of fell into it. I don't know if I'm cut out for this. Remember when I was talking to Doc Awk—" Jane snorted at the nickname, "—about that freaking magnet? He looked at me like I was the dumbest person he'd ever met."

"If he made you feel that way, screw him! You were right about that magnet. It worked fine after we powered it up ten minutes later and—"

"That's totally not the point, Jane," she sighed, meeting her eyes.

Jane didn't look like she wanted to hear this. "What's the point, then?" she asked softly.

"I'm—I'm just thinking that this job is dangerous and important, and I don't have the skillset to be anything other than a flunky. And, frankly, you could have Harvard-educated flunkies up in this bitch, but instead you've got me—"

"Darcy, you're the most competent, helpful intern I've ever had, including some of those jackasses Tony had hired before we came in. He said so himself."

"That's still not the whole point, though, Jane," Darcy groaned, frustrated. "The thing is, I haven't seen my family in a while. And I've been lying to them. For _months_. And then, not so long ago, I got charged by a freaking giant green dude who later saved me from a group of Neo-Nazis in Kevlar. And, that'd all be fine and dandy if I felt like I was the right person for the job, you know? But I'm not. I'm a small cog in a huge machine, and I'm not even the best cog for the tiny space I occupy. And I'm sacrificing _so much_ to be _so insignificant_ and so ignorant of what it is I'm even doing! Like, Jane, I still don't even know what the hell half your machines even _do!"_

Jane sat silent following her small outburst, stunned and sad.

"Darcy, do you want to quit?"

She didn't really have an answer for that. Even after everything she'd admitted, Jane was her closest friend in the world, and that friend lived and breathed her work. If Darcy didn't work at the Tower, she'd probably see Jane once, maybe twice a year if she was lucky. That was assuming Fury didn't have her memory wiped (and she totally believed he had that technology). So, if she left, she'd be safer, maybe even happier, and could find a job that made her feel fulfilled. She'd never be forced by the government to lie to her family again. But then, she'd lose Jane. She wouldn't even know she'd lost something, and would she really be happy with that kind of unfillable void inside her? Would it be like an itch she could never scratch, always wondering who she was missing that she couldn't remember? And, she reminded herself, she'd also lose Tony—a man she'd come to consider a good friend. She'd lose Natasha and Clint and Steve. She'd lose every important memory from the past several years. What happened in New Mexico would be science fiction, the sort of thing she'd read on conspiracy theorist websites and laugh at. She wouldn't remember all the nights she stayed up with Jane tracing the stars and hearing her dreams. She wouldn't remember telling Jane embarrassing childhood stories. She'd have only the vaguest knowledge of what happened in New York, as reported by CNN or The Washington Post. She'd have no recollection of coming here, of the barista in the local Starbucks, of how Tony took his coffee, how even Banner took his tea. It'd all be gone. And, even if she could convince Fury to let her out without taking those memories, it would be as if it never happened, anyway. She'd be out of the loop, out of their world. She'd have to walk away and never look back.

But if she didn't get out now, at what point would she have been there long enough that they wouldn't let her out at all? How long could she stay before her leaving became a national—scratch that—a _global_ security risk?

Darcy didn't know. What she knew was that it hurt to think about, deep in her heart. She cared too much, that's what her mother had always told her. And now she didn't know how to jump ship without leaving part of herself behind.

"I have to sleep," she intoned numbly. She stood from the couch and left the room. As she shut the door, she heard Jane begin to cry.

 _v_

The next morning, Darcy wasn't to be found at the shared kitchen counter. Her coffee remained untouched, her pancakes uneaten. Natasha said nothing, and Clint pretended not to notice. They were too perceptive of Darcy's changed mood. Eventually, slowly, the Tower had begun to represent a kind of prison to her, and they could see that. Steve texted her, asking if she was feeling well. What the archer and assassin could see, Steve, too, was becoming vaguely aware of.

In a hallway on an R&D floor in less use than the Science Trifecta's lab, Darcy sat on a bench. Her phone was in her hand, but she put it away as soon as Steve's text appeared on her screen. Lab technicians strode by her importantly, not giving her a glance. She could be invisible when she wanted to be.

"I hear you're thinking of leaving us," a voice spoke from beside her. _Almost invisible._

Darcy sighed. "Listen, iPod thief. I don't know how Fury overheard that—I'm thinking it has to do with Jarvis, the traitor, but I'm not ready to talk about it. I haven't figured it out yet."

Coulson nodded, but didn't go anywhere. Instead, he sat down beside her. She furrowed her eyebrows. _I suppose I should have known it wouldn't be this easy_ , she thought.

She cleared her throat. "Hey, I get that you came here to threaten me or whatever, but I kind of came to this floor to be alone." He glanced over at her.

"Miss Lewis, you have all of New York City at your disposal and you chose _this floor_ in _the_ _Tower_ to be alone?"

She didn't know what to say to that. "I—hey, man, I don't like walking," she murmured defensively, focusing on her hands in her lap.

"Or maybe you're waiting for someone to help you make up your mind."

"Too bad I don't ask petty thieves for advice," she replied airily.

He smiled. Darcy could admit he had a nice smile. It put people at ease and felt sincere. She didn't trust it.

"Did I ever tell you what happened to me during the attack on New York?"

"Dude, I don't think we've ever had a real conversation. You know you've never told me any of your war stories."

"Loki stabbed me," he said blandly. That shut her up.

After a moment: "What…," she trailed off, then tried again. "Was it bad?"

"Imagine if a scythe went right through your torso." That was so fucking crazy it had to be true. That kind of shit was exactly the sort of thing S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with on the daily.

"How are you still here? How—how does somebody survive that?" She was shell-shocked, staring directly at his chest as if she could see the long, ugly scar gracing his chest beneath the suit. When she looked up, she met his eyes, and turned away guiltily. But he was still smiling. He leaned in conspiratorially. Darcy leaned in, as well, expecting to hear something perhaps believed medically impossible.

Instead, he whispered: "Classified." She rolled her eyes and leaned away. He laughed—a full-bodied, deep-in-your-gut laugh. Against her better instincts, she found herself warming to the agent.

"Why—" she paused. _Screw it_ , she decided. _Bite the bullet. He is_ _ **exactly**_ _the person I'd ask for advice. If anyone has got an answer for me, it'd be him._ She turned to face him, unrestrained in her demand for an answer to her questions. "Why would you keep working for an organization that forces you to lie, puts you in constant danger, and yields almost no reward? What do you get out of this? Kicks?"

Not at all fazed by her aggressive, self-righteous tone, he smiled genuinely at her. "I'm thinking, Miss Lewis, for probably the very same reasons you haven't packed your bags yet."

Darcy didn't say anything for a moment. She went back to studying her hands. Choosing her words carefully, she almost whispered, "Dude, I just—I just wanted to help save the world in whatever small way I could. I know that what the guys—I mean, the Avengers, and Jane, and all the scientists—I know what they do is important, and, for me, at least for a while, that made all of the shit it came with worth it. But, I just don't feel like I'm actually improving anything." She laughed cynically. "I know this isn't a dead-end corporate position in a cubicle, but I just get the sense that everyone here is doing something worthwhile, and I'm just getting paid because Jane insisted on it. It's not just demoralizing, it feels like I'm dealing with life-and-death situations for the privilege of feeling inadequate. I'm surrounded by freaking superheroes going out and risking their lives, man. And I'm just…making _coffee runs_ ," she hissed. And that was the kicker, wasn't it? She felt _powerless_ to help. It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't that she was the lacquey and they were the heroes. No, it was feeling like she was just getting in the way, that she was superfluous. She kept thinking of the magnet. _All I'm good for is recognizing obvious problems,_ she sighed _._

Agent Coulson nodded quietly. "Your reasons for coming here were good ones, Miss Lewis. You wanted to help protect people. And I feel much the same way, with one exception."

Darcy hated this, feeling vulnerable to a government agent who was probably recording all of this to play back to Fury, Tony, or maybe even Jackie the Shrink. "Oh yeah? What's that, iPod thief?"

He smirked, taking the barb as if it were a term of endearment. "I'm not afraid of the consequences of protecting people—" She didn't let him finish, so outraged was she that he would question her bravery.

"It's not a matter of guts, asshole! It's a matter of skill! Dude, I'm _not_ a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!"

"You've watched enough classified material to be one."

She balked. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. He laughed, taking pity on her. "Don't worry, we have no intention of sanctioning you for that. Jarvis doesn't do much without an A-OK from Tony…or Director Fury."

That was even more confusing. "Fury _let me_ watch and read classified material?"

"He said you were an asset to the organization and if you had a desire to learn, all the better." Darcy didn't know how to process that. It was like Coulson was telling her Fury had caught her doing homework for fun and just let her think it was rebellious. "We trust you, Darcy," he said, his nonchalant tone doing no justice to his atom bomb of a statement.

"Ya'll fucking _trust_ me? _I_ don't even trust me! I put my PJs on backwards at least once a week!" He made no response, the crow's feet just getting deeper with his growing smile.

She met his eyes. "I'm not calling you Phil," she snapped without any real venom, crossing her arms petulantly. "You'll always be iPod Thief to me."

"Fair enough," he chuckled.

"So, what? You guys trust me and want me to study up, so that just means I should take the fact that I'm lying to my family and the fact that I don't know if I will even survive this place and all my other concerns—and just _shove_ _it_?" She wanted to hold onto this anger. It was easier than having to mourn leaving. And she was just about set on leaving…(mostly).

"No," he shook his head and looked very serious. "If you want to leave, you can leave, no strings attached. We trust you. Fury trusts you. And even if we didn't," he added on, mouth twitching, "we could access any websites you might decide to use as truth-telling platforms."

Darcy breathed a sigh of relief. He may be an iPod thief, but she didn't think he'd lie about something like that. Her memory was safe. She laughed a little. "What, afraid I'll tell the whole world about the men in black?"

He smiled. "Specifically, on Tumblr." That made her laugh harder than she had laughed in a while.

When she regained her breath, she found Coulson leaning back in his seat, looking content. For a minute, they both stared straight ahead at the white wall of the hallway. It was soothing, a moment of peace in the torrent of their lives. White coats strode by. And then the hall was empty again save for a Lazarus spook and a brilliant, disheartened intern who was at least thirty minutes late for work.

"Darcy," he spoke abruptly. He turned in his seat to face her. Despite her misgivings, she listened. "While neither you nor I may have the abilities of a Norse god or a supersoldier, I don't believe what we do is any less important, nor do I believe it takes any less courage." His hand tapped twice against his tie—no, not his tie. Against his scar. Darcy swallowed. "Everyone feels powerless in the face of evil. It's the willingness to try anyway that sets us apart from the bystanders."

And just like that, the battle was lost. Coulson could see it on her face; she'd made up her mind.

He stood then, with Darcy's eyes following his movements. His hand went to the inner pocket of his jacket, and, to her disbelief, he pulled out a small purple square. She gasped.

Her iPod. It was her _motherfucking iPod._

He handed it to her calmly, no flourish or indication of what the little square meant to her. Her hands took it greedily. "I hope you don't mind," he tacked on by way of explanation, "but I added a few tunes." Her face slowly, disbelievingly, rose up to gape at him. He wore an expression of quiet satisfaction. "It's good to have you with us, Miss Lewis."

Just like that, he walked away, with her staring after him. She pressed the power button and was delighted to find he'd fully charged it for her. And in her library, the first thing she noticed was that the guilt-tripping bastard had added all the albums from David Bowie's discography that she'd been missing. Her face was as gleeful as a child's on Christmas day.

Somewhere down the hall, she heard him call back: "Oh, and you might want to read that. It's a gift from Fury." Darcy tore her eyes away from her precious iPod and took a quick assessment of her surroundings.

Sitting next to her was a physics textbook.


	6. The Guinea Pig: Part II

**_The Guinea Pig: Part II_**

 _vi_

Darcy was a fast learner. The truth was, she already knew more than she thought she did. Between Erik and Jane and all their gadgets, she'd picked up enough knowledge to be invaluable. She just had a tendency to underestimate herself. But, as she soaked in the college textbook Fury had gifted her (it was old and filled with handwritten notes, but she couldn't wager a guess as to its original owner), she began to realize that she was ahead of the curve by a mile.

It became equally self-evident to Dr. Bruce Banner one morning a week into her studies when she interrupted his note-taking to inform him that he had made a minor miscalculation.

"That number is wrong."

He raised his head to see his tormentor standing in front of his desk, holding his morning tea. But she was looking down at his paper. "I beg your pardon?"

"That number," she pointed in the middle of a page beneath several others, "it's off."

Without prompting, and to his utter incredulity, she coolly took a pen and leaned over his desk to make the adjustment. At first, a patronizing part of him considered politely telling her she couldn't possibly grasp what he was… _wait_. His eyes widened.

How she'd seen the big picture of his equation—or for that matter, he wondered, how she'd been able to read his handwriting—was beyond him. Even more shocking was the fact that she was _right_. His face spoke volumes. Darcy grinned.

"This is what happens when you don't get enough sleep, Brucey," Tony quipped from his corner of the lab. Dr. Banner could say nothing. No words were forthcoming. Darcy only shrugged, by now used to being ignored by him, and was surprisingly not in the slightest bit arrogant about her achievement. She set down the tea, seeming pleased with herself, but no more than if she had completed any other mundane daily task. She'd seemed more excited about the magnet.

Flabbergasted, he finally asked: "How did you understand that?"

This woman—this woman in a t-shirt sporting a shirtless Phil Collins flipping off the camera, wearing a purple cardigan and jeans, combat boots with spikes on them, and a beanie—shrugged, saying only: "I've been reading in my downtime."

And then she walked out of the lab, boots thudding on the pristine white floor. Bruce blinked.

"Tony," he said, voice low, "Did you _know?_ "

"Know what?" the billionaire responded, "that we had a fourth genius in the room? It's kind of obvious, man. I'm surprised you only just noticed. Foster is still in the dark, but one of these days she'll figure out that Lewis isn't just following complex orders by rote." He paused, considering. "Probably. I mean, who knows. Maybe she'll never figure it out. That woman wouldn't know the color of the sky if she didn't have to look through it to see the stars," he scratched his head, "But, hey! Genius self-taught lab assistant? I'll take it any day of the week over the Yalies they send our way."

Bruce only frowned.

 _vii_

It took her longer than it honestly should have. Tony apparently believed she was a genius (and had started to occasionally say so, even if she did think he was being facetious), so maybe it made sense that she'd do that typical Jane thing where she could understand complex equations but not see obvious shit staring her in the face. The thing was, his hair had been messy, and his skin had been dirty and ( _Give me a break, it was months ago!_ ) Still, she felt like a fool for not realizing sooner.

Darcy was passing a group of interns who were helping with the still-mysterious Chamber in the hallway. She only caught the end of a sentence. They were gossiping, clearly, which she usually didn't care about. Except this gossip had to do with "that zen weirdo" and how apparently "you wouldn't like him when he's angry."

It clicked.

Darcy had read enough classified material courtesy of Jarvis to know exactly what that meant.

Minutes later, she found herself bursting into the lab, immediately seeing the object of her excitement staring at her in confusion across the room.

"You!" she pointed at him, half out of breath from running.

Dr. Banner raised both eyebrows. "…me?"

"Yes, you! I didn't even get a thank you for carrying you up to your damn fortress!"

His head inclined fractionally with the weight of his shock. " _You…_ you were the one who put me in my room?"

"Yes!" she said, still outraged yet gleeful with the satisfaction of having found knowledge she'd been missing. She had figured, _Of course this is why he's been a dick to me!_ But, seeing the confusion still in his features, she began to realize he was as clueless about who she was as she had been of him.

"How exactly did you carry me?" he asked, trying to wrap his head around the notion. He set down the papers he was holding. His face was open. She took him in—all his dark chest hair peeking out from his oh-so-scandalously-unbuttoned white Oxford, his jeans, his sneakers, his curls, his broad shoulders. She didn't know when she'd started to notice the chest hair, but now that she thought of it, she'd seen a hell of a lot more of him than that, and the revelation didn't make this growing awkwardness any less pronounced. Darcy shifted on her feet, adjusting to the unexpected obliviousness on his part.

"I dragged you, obviously."

He blanched. "The _entire way?"_

Darcy snorted. "No, not the _entire way._ I got you into the elevator then I dragged you over to your door, and Jarvis let me into your room."

Dr. Banner was silent for a moment, taking a beat to remove his glasses and study them in his hands. Cryptically, he said, "You covered me." His tone was clear but quiet.

Darcy raised her eyebrow. "Um, yeah. You were hangin' out, so I thought it'd be decent."

Still looking at his glasses, he nodded. "Thank you."

Well, if that wasn't gravest expression of gratitude she'd ever heard… "Uh…yeah, sure. I just—hope you're feeling better." Darcy was suddenly struck with the intense need to be gone from the room.

He watched her go, then glanced at his watch. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep breaths.

Tony sat quietly in the corner, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. Despite the hardline approach that he presented to Bruce about treating Darcy with respect, Tony secretly found their absurd dynamic endlessly amusing. Watching Darcy charge at Bruce's carefully-constructed calm while the scientist responded by strategically avoiding her best attempts at confrontation was better entertainment than _Game of Thrones_. This new development was positively juicy. Tony loved it.

Darcy found it frustrating as hell.

Bruce was slowly losing his mind.

And Jane was oblivious. Even after Jane became aware of Banner's alter ego (which, due to her protectiveness, nearly caused a rift in the science trifecta), she still never noticed the strange way Darcy and Bruce regarded one another.

But what none of the lab's occupants knew was that office relations were quickly about to become the least of their concerns…

 _viii_

Darcy wouldn't know this at the time of the event, but more than two months after HYDRA's attack, Tony Stark found himself in the uppermost level of Avengers Tower, speaking hastily to Bruce Banner.

"It's some kind of technological bomb," he growled, typing furiously on a computer that wasn't behaving as it should, "They must have planted it during the attack, though how SHIELD missed it during their sweep is fucking beyond me."

They had been having a meeting about Bruce's pet project when suddenly all the tech went haywire. And, despite Tony's best efforts, things were still in limbo.

"We have to find where they put it, Tony," was Bruce's unhelpful reply. Keeping cool was a specialty of his (and a necessity) but it only served to tick Tony off.

"That's hard to _DO,"_ he seethed, manually sorting through the building's schematics floor by floor on his screen, "when it's scrambling our systems!" As if to prove his point, the screen shuttered and came back online.

Tony breathed and shut his eyes. Then, a thought occurred to him.

"What would the point of it be?"

"To infiltrate us, I would assume," Bruce replied, deceptively calm, "Like they did the first time."

"But they can't. We can't get out thanks to their modified EMP, and they can't get in for the same reason."

Bruce mulled that over. "Well," he said, stepping closer to Tony, "a frightening possibility is that they want us trapped so they can kill us here."

"Gas is out of the question; there is no centralized ventilation system for them to capitalize on."

"A bomb?" Bruce ventured.

"From the sky, maybe. They couldn't have left one in the building; Jarvis would have picked up on it after he came back online. I can see him missing a small upgraded EMP, but he wouldn't miss an explosive. Especially not one big enough to take down the Tower."

"So, from the outside?"

Tony shook his head, thinking. "It'd be blown out of the sky by the Air Force."

"What if they're trying to keep us occupied so the Avengers can't stop an attack elsewhere?"

Tony shook his head a second time. "Clint, Steve, and Natasha are all out and about. Thor is in Asgard. Trapping the two of us for fifteen minutes or so is hardly a worthwhile effort."

Bruce thought a moment. "Have we considered that they may be exploiting our own weaknesses?" he asked quietly.

At the same moment, both men seemed to come to the same conclusion. Their eyes met, panic reflecting back and forth between them like an infinity mirror.

"Please, for the love of God, tell me you're not thinking…," Tony's voice was on the verge of pleading.

"I am," Bruce answered darkly.

Both men rushed to the door, and Tony began to input the override codes.

Bruce and Tony knew that if _they_ were HYDRA and had been made aware of the existence of volatile chemical materials sitting on the ninety-fifth floor with the potential to explode if improperly cooled, they would capitalize on that opportunity.

Tony's fingers input the override code a third time, swearing violently. The system just wasn't taking it. Nothing was working right.

Bruce suddenly felt lightheaded. His hand reached out for Tony's arm and he squeezed almost absentmindedly. Tony looked up from his futile effort.

"Tony…," Bruce choked, a thought dawning on him. "Tony, where is Darcy right now?" It was the first time Tony had ever heard Bruce refer to her by her first name, and he immediately knew why.

Tony's mouth opened and shut with no sound escaping. Darcy would be in the lab right now. On the ninety-fifth floor.

It was at that moment the lights went out.

 _ix_

Nothing was working.

Jane had stepped out to grab notes from her apartment a few dozen levels down, leaving Darcy alone when suddenly everything electronic had decided to spaz out. Darcy chewed on her bottom lip. She really hoped Jane had gotten out of the elevator before all this shit started up. The lights were twitching and blinking, and the machinery kept powering on and off. If Jane was stuck in the elevators, Darcy could only imagine how freaky that would be.

 _x_

—being sent up, then down, then stopping abruptly. It was like a bad carnival ride and Jane could feel her stomach flip. The Tower was clearly under some kind of attack (again) and she was stuck in the _elevator._

Then all at once, the lights went out. Jane held her breath. The elevator wasn't moving. It was frozen still. She breathed a sigh of relief.

 _xi_

It would have been completely dark if it weren't for the high windows in the lab. With everything shut down and no working communication, Darcy rightly felt rather vulnerable. She strode to Jane's desk and grabbed her own purse.

 _I know I brought my taser with me,_ she thought as she rifled through the bag. _Not that it'll work,_ she huffed.

Behind her, Darcy heard a loud clunk. She stopped what she was doing and slowly looked over her shoulder, eyes landing on the machine she'd been helping Tony and Dr. Banner build for over a month. And its door had just swung open. _Emergency protocols,_ she realized. She stared. _Shit._ _The chemicals. The_ _ **extra super-hot, must-be-kept-cool-at-all-times-unless-we-want-to-blow-up-the-building**_ _chemicals._

Did Tony fix the problem? Did he figure out how to keep the cylinders cool? Did he even anticipate this kind of attack? She didn't know. He'd been working on it for months, but she never asked if it had been resolved.

Darcy dropped the bag and stepped closer to the chamber. The heavy door was cracked open. She didn't really want to go inside. She'd never gone in without Tony or Dr. Banner and now the prospect of doing so in an emergency situation felt like a level of responsibility she simply was not prepared for.

Ignoring the anxiety, she closed the distance and took hold of the door, which was even heavier than it looked.

She glanced inside, hoping to see something to comfort her or allay her fears. Instead, she found the room already heating up. Thick darkness emanated from within. The two cylinders had already been spun out of their casings in the wall, revealed and ready to be removed. Those chemicals— _or whatever they were_ —radiated heat on their own and the cannisters of goo glowed thinly, more green than yellow in the darkness. The chamber had become more like an echoing cavern in the absence of any background sounds. No distant hiss of air circulation. No gentle whir of electrical wiring. _No hum of a cooling system_ , Darcy registered.

She moved into the chamber hesitantly, darkness engulfing her despite the secondhand late-afternoon light hazily spreading from the lab windows into the doorway of the metal box. As she made her way up to the wall, she stared briefly at the exposed containers, looking askance at a merciless situation.

Feeling the throb of an impending headache, Darcy wondered how many CT scans worth of radiation she was getting right now. She set the thought aside for the moment. Whatever improvements Tony had intended to make to the safety protocols hadn't been finished. Given the heat of the room (it felt like a sauna) he clearly hadn't taken care of the most important part of the weakness: keeping the cylinders cool.

She breathed through her nose and tugged at the collar of her turtle neck. Hazardous materials, but she'd done this before. Darcy slid her sleeves up to her elbows and stepped forward with purpose. She could handle this. Save the Tower and all that. No big deal.

Slowly, she attempted to lift the first cannister. Immediately, she hissed and drew her hand back. Cursing with a passion, her eyes squeezed shut and blinked open. Two red welts appeared on her forefinger and pinkie. They were too hot. But if she didn't get at least one of them out of the room fast, both containers would feed off each other's radiation and—well, _Molecularly deconstructed toast_ , Darcy thought grimly.

Darcy sprinted out of the chamber and tried opening a desk, hoping there were radiation-protective gloves hidden away somewhere. But, with a corresponding tug of panic in her gut, the desk drawers wouldn't open. _The fucking drawers are connected to the system? Tony, dammit, did you think any of this through?_ Logically, she recognized it was for security purposes (the lab did have sensitive information, after all, that had to be protected in events such as these) but she was too freaked out to cut Tony any slack for that right now. Especially since it meant the doors were probably locked, too. Bottom line: She couldn't escape the lab even if she _wanted_ to.

Thinking fast, she returned to the chamber and stripped off her purple sweater (her favorite one with the holes in the sleeves for her thumbs.) Now clad in a sleeveless white camisole, she breathed easier both for the reprieve in heat and her makeshift oven mitt. Wrapping the knit material around one of the cannisters proved a slippery affair. "Hey!" she admonished the inanimate object, "Stay put!" She wrapped one of the sleeves under the metal on the bottom and leaned the rest of it against her body, willfully ignoring how quickly she could feel it beginning to burn into her. She walked outside the chamber, having difficulty with the heavy unwieldy object and set it on the opposite side of the room, where it had space to breathe. With the sweater still in her hands, she refused to give herself time to check the red marks she knew must now be seared into her collarbone and arms. Instead, she returned to the chamber as quickly as she could.

But as she made her way toward the back of the chrome room a second time, skin already slick with sweat and heart thudding loudly in her ears, the lights switched on. Before her eyes, the second cylinder disappeared into the wall, locked by a clearance code that Tony hadn't trusted her with. And with a sickening mechanical groan, she heard the door shutting behind her. In vain, she spun around and ran back toward it. Clumsy in her panic and disoriented by the abrupt lighting change, she tripped on the silver base in the center of the room and her face collided with the grating beneath her. Darcy heard the bolts of the door clunk into place with finality.

 _Oh God._

Behind her, she heard another hiss of decompression. Slowly, she turned her head to look over her shoulder. The silver base was rising and, within it, was a chair—no, wait. Not a chair. A _restraining_ chair. It had metal cuffs that chinked open; they were expandable. In fact, it looked to be that the entire contraption was expandable if it was all made from the same chainmail-esque technology that the cuffs were. The whole thing was strangely inviting but Darcy stayed put on the floor. She wasn't that stupid. _Oh, yes, please restrain me while I'm trapped in this metal box with dangerous chemicals!_ She was going to kill Tony. Or maybe Banner. This _was_ his baby, after all, and it looked to be designed with him and his "alter ego" in mind.

Just when she thought things couldn't get any more ominous, the countdown started.

"High temperatures in the chemical cavity pose immediate danger outside the chamber. Chemical release imminent." It was a female voice. _Why couldn't it at least have been Jarvis?_ "You have thirty seconds before gaseous leakage begins. It is strongly recommended that any occupants enter the exit code and remove themselves now. Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight…"

Darcy went for a Hail Mary.

"Please tell me you're an AI, lady, because I can't do this right now!"

"…twenty-three…"

"WHAT THE FUCK, TONY!" Darcy screamed. She was on the verge of tears. _This_ was how she was going to die? In a bad reenactment of that one Sean Connery/Nicolas Cage film about Alcatraz combined with every imaginable trope about dangerous chemicals in scientific labs? _Fuck that._

She ran to the door and tried a few combinations. Tony's birthday. Pepper's birthday. Banner's birthday. "Anyone's damn birthday!" she shouted at the pad. She glanced up through the window, searching for anyone who might be able to save her, but it seemed no one had yet made it to the lab. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember the date Banner joined the Avengers. Someone had told her. _Shit, when did Steve say that was? Think, Lewis, think!_ She opened her eyes, punched the number in, and waited. No dull tone announcing she'd put in the wrong code was forthcoming. Her hope soared. And then:

"Too many incorrect codes have been entered. Try again in one minute. Fourteen…thirteen.."

Darcy spared a moment to stare up at the ceiling in utter disbelief. She didn't have a minute. She didn't have _ten seconds._ "This isn't a damn iPhone!" she growled. Darcy's eyes landed on the chair. _This chamber was meant for something. And maybe if it won't kill Banner it won't kill me. Fingers crossed. God help me…_

At the last possible second, Darcy climbed into the metal throne and was rapidly ensconced by the elastic metal. It swarmed around her body like the chair was weaving her into a cocoon. Breath slowed. She felt the metal tightening around her, strangely cooling her hot skin. Red lights began to circle and swirl from the ceiling. Sounds blared. Absently, she recognized the smear of purple on the grating as her sweater, its color shifting rapidly under the crimson beams. She tried to focus—on anything, anything to keep her grounded. But then she felt three pin-pricks of needles forcing their way through her camisole, then through her skin at the base of her skull, the center of her spine, and the curve of her tailbone. The metal continued wrapping itself around her. Only seconds had passed, but it was simultaneously taking _so long_.

Through the window in the door, Darcy caught a glimpse of Dr. Banner rushing forward in horror, his face twisted in grief and flushing jade.

As the metal shielded the last of her vision, Darcy was stricken with a pang of empathy. She knew what it was like to watch someone familiar die. She, too, had felt powerless when she'd gotten into a bad car crash with a friend in high school. Rocio had never recovered that summer from the injuries; she'd slipped into a coma and then into darkness, and in a flash Darcy felt that helplessness all over again. The sound of the restraints finally clinking into place brought back the echo of a compressing chassis, of shattering glass. She'd felt responsible for the crash; she was in the passenger's seat. All that guilt and fear… Darcy knew Banner hated himself enough without watching this happen to her. She wished she could end Banner's pain, his suffering. But she was trapped in a metal cocoon and she could hear and smell acid overtaking the air. She tried not to breathe but when she could no longer hold out, she felt it in her lungs like breathable fire. She gasped, and her body convulsed.

Everything went green.

And then everything went black.

 **PostScript:** _Let's be honest. Bruce and Darcy were doomed to be at each other's throat from the instant "I don't drink coffee" left his mouth. I_ _ **did**_ _say this was slow burn, after all. A little mutual dislike never did romance much harm…_


End file.
